Chapter Text
The journey to the Fallow Mire begins with an overcast sky shrouding even the Breach and an undead horse running through the village like an inauspicious portent.
People jump out of the way of the bridled and saddled Bog Unicorn cantering through the gathering outside Haven’s gates to stand before a somewhat dumbfounded Herald. Maxwell slowly reaches out to take hold of its reins and then looks around it at the horsemaster huffing and puffing down the dirt path from the horse pens.
“Damned beast, you think you can fool me - oh. I see you caught it," Dennet says. “Best keep a tight hold and a close eye on it, Herald. Got a mind of its own.”
Varric shakes his head, almost smacking his horse’s muzzle. “I’ve seen some shit, but this….”
The flustered horsemaster busies himself inspecting the nervous flesh-and-blood mounts while Cassandra returns to her discussion with the sergeant leading the soldiers. Blackwall slings his newly crafted shield over his back while Krem and the Iron Bull have last-minute words about the Chargers’ mission to Therinfal Redoubt. Sera saunters out of Haven, toting a few suspicious jars in her hands and on her belt. Dorian follows soon after, clutching a cloak tightlyaround his shoulders and looking miserable with the weather.
“Snow’s coming,” Blackwall muses and someone - Dorian, probably - groans. “Could cause delays if we don’t leave the mountains soon.”
“Then we’re moving out now,” Cassandra says, striding to her waiting horse while the sergeant goes to organize the soldiers. “I’m not waiting another day to bring our soldiers back.”
Solas is leading his mount away from the party to another, smaller one standing near another dirt path. Fiona and Cullen are there along with several soldiers, a Starkhaven templar named Belinda Darrow, and two of Fiona’s mages.
“Where’s he off to?” Sera wonders loudly.
“Bringing back lyrium from Orzammar,” Cassandra says while urging her horse to the head of the group. She looks down at Maxwell. “Herald.”
He eyes the Bog Unicorn’s bony black head while climbing into the saddle. The horse snorts, a strange hollow sound, and immediately strides forward to Cassandra’s side. Something cold touches his forehead and Maxwell looks up at the snow slowly drifting down from the gray sky.
They lose an entire day navigating the increasingly treacherous path down through the mountains. When they reach the outpost sitting at the intersection between the Imperial Highway and the mountain road, everyone is muddy and miserable except for Vivienne, who seems impervious to everything, and Maxwell, whose undead horse somehow always managed to find sure footing in the snow and slush.
“We’re leaving before dawn,” Cassandra announces in the evening while everyone’s sitting around the fires, trying to feel warm again, “so get some sleep while you can.”
“Did you hear from Harding?” Maxwell asks. He doesn’t remember seeing a raven arrive at camp.
“No, but we need to move quickly. The sooner we get our people back from the Avvar, the better.”
People slowly disperse for the night, soldiers picking lots to determine who’s taking the first shift while the others bicker over who shares tents with whom. Maxwell isn’t keen on sleep yet so he takes out Ferelden: Folklore and History and flips through the pages to find the chapters on the Avvar.
“If I knew I was spending the nights out in the snow like a common bandit, I never would’ve set foot outside Minrathous,” Dorian grumbles.
“You’re welcome to go back,” Cassandra says.
“Maybe I’ll take my chances in Nevarra. It’s not Tevinter and there’s no snow. Is there? I haven’t visited in years.”
Maxwell tries to focus on his book instead of the sudden frigid burst of dread in his chest.
“If you’re going to complain,” Vivienne says while rising to her feet, “then I suggest you do it where no one can hear you.”
Eventually, Maxwell and Dorian are the only ones sitting by the fire. Cassandra is the last to leave, giving Maxwell a look reminiscent of the servants who caught him reading in the library late at night. He turns back to his book, telling himself to stop reading at the end of the current page.
He’s been staring at the second-last paragraph for about fifteen minutes when Dorian awkwardly clears his throat and says, “You know I wasn’t serious, right?”
Maxwell looks up. “What?”
“When I said I’d go back north,” Dorian says, shifting uncomfortably on the split log serving as a bench. “It was all in jest. I spent weeks in those blasted hills following Alexius and dodging your little mage-templar war. A little snow isn’t going to chase me away.”
“I… okay.”
“I just want to be clear,” the mage continues. “In case you… if your allies - I - kaffas. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
“Okay,” Maxwell says again, slowly.
Dorian waits until he realizes that’s all Maxwell is going to say. “Now that that’s settled, we should - I should turn in.”
Right. Sleep. He should get to it. Maxwell closes his book and tucks it under his arm while getting to his feet. Dorian is waiting for him and summons veilfire to light the way to the tents.
“What is that you’re reading, exactly?” Dorian asks.
“Sister Petrine’s Ferelden: Folklore and History.”
“Trying to educate yourself on the Avvar currently holding your soldiers hostage?”
Maxwell shrugs. “If I was, I’d be reading her “Tales of the Mountain-People”. Seggrit was selling this one so I bought it. Used to read it all the time until....” He frowns at the mage’s surprised scoff. “What?”
“You read about Ferelden history for fun?” There’s a curious gleam in Dorian’s eyes as he asks, “What else did you read?”
“Uh… The Exalted Marches: An Examination of Chantry Warfare by Sister Petrine. A Study of the Fifth Blight, all volumes. Land of the Wilders by Mother Ailis. Everything by Brother Genitivi….”
By the time the weather turns perpetually gray and the nonstop rain muddies all roads south, the party has fended off two bands of unfortunate highwaymen and closed four rifts. One appeared on the outskirts of a small village that assumed the rift was merely part of life next to the Fallow Mire. Their confusion when told the Herald would take care of the rift left Maxwell wondering what he should expect to find in the Mire if magical anomalies are a regular occurrence here.
In the end, irate villagers demanded recompense for the loss of two farmhouses and the local chantry during the ensuing battle between the Inquisition and demons, forcing Maxwell and Cassandra to leave behind several soldiers to help rebuild. Maxwell had to run to keep up with Cassandra as she stormed out of the village to the others waiting on the road, muttering darkly about lost time. Everyone gave her a wide berth while she found and ordered a scout to return to Haven to inform Josephine.
“You’d think they want the weird green thing in the sky gone,” Varric had said with one last suspicious glance at the gloomy village.
“Wasn’t doing nothing,” Sera replied. “Poking nests is funny when no one gets hurt.”
“You have a jar of bees on you,” Blackwall said with a shudder.
“They were cheating people! They deserved it.”
On the morning of the third day, two armed men step onto the dark road in front of Maxwell and Cassandra. One quick glance and then they salute. “Herald. Seeker Cassandra.”
“Is Harding here?” she asks.
They point the way to a soggy camp next to an abandoned village called Fisher’s End. Maxwell peers through the wet gloom at the skeletons of houses, the wood slowly rotting away from the rain. He dismounts but rather than hand the reins over to a nervous soldier, he loops them around the saddle horn, pats the Bog Unicorn’s bony shoulder, and pushes it to follow the other horses to a drier sheltered place. The relieved woman then tells him where Harding will be and points the way.
Harding is inside a tent, drying off her face and dripping hair. She immediately jumps to attention and salutes Maxwell when he steps inside.
“Welcome to the Fallow Mire,” she says wryly. She leans to the side when Cassandra enters after him. “Seeker.”
“Does it ever stop raining here?” Maxwell asks while following Harding to a small desk. The soggy turf squelches underfoot and gives way; he wonders how anyone thought establishing a village here was a good idea.
“According to the locals, not in a long time,” she says. “After a plague hit, they all left. Not sure if it was the Blight or some kind of sickness.”
“That’s reassuring,” Cassandra says. “What happened here since you arrived?”
“Set up camp, sent people out to find ours and the Avvar holding them.” Harding shakes her head. “It’s treacherous. Bogs like this, if you don’t watch your footing you’ll suddenly sink underwater. Already lost someone that way.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Maxwell says. He didn’t think they’d have casualties already.
“Thank you,” she says. She points to a wrinkled map laid flat on the table, the corners held down by heavy objects. She draws a line from Fisher’s End to the other side of the bog. “They’re held at Hargrave Keep. That’s all we could find out before the Avvar caught onto us and attacked. They outnumber us and they’re moving closer each day. Only thing keeping them from taking Fisher’s End is the Mire itself. Well, that and rifts. I marked the ones we found here and here, Herald.”
“Even with reinforcements, this area is exposed,” Cassandra says. “No barricades?”
“We’re trying. Ground’s too soft so it’s a work-in-progress.”
“I’ll take care of them,” Cassandra decides. “Herald, you should scout ahead and deal with any Avvar and rifts you find.”
“And stay away from the water,” Harding warns. “Bad things happen if you disturb it.”
One hour later, Maxwell does just that. He slips on soggy grass and finds himself knee-deep in murky waters. He scrambles back onto land but the damage is done - corpses rise, armed with rusty swords and bows. Sera shrieks and the nearest corpse collapses with a splash, stuck full of arrows.
The other bodies shamble towards them.
“Maker’s breath,” Varric mutters while cranking Bianca. “Good job, Buttercup.”
“What? I didn’t expect that! Who expects dead things to just come out of the water? No one! No one does!”
Blackwall bashes the nearest corpse with his new silverite shield and then steps into the pond to stab another through with his longsword, snapping its spine. Maxwell groans when the violent ripples disturb more waterlogged corpses and wades back into the flooded pond to the Warden’s side. A green barrier wraps around them and Maxwell spares a look over his shoulder at the mage standing on the hillside, watches bright energy arc over him to bombard the nearest walking undead. Maxwell lops off its head and kicks it back into the water, then turns to sever the spine of another. Arrows and magic fly around him and Blackwall but for every corpse they cut down, two more rise.
“Think we’d best get out of the water,” Blackwall grunts while taking the brunt of a corpse’s attack. He shoves his shield back hard enough to snap its neck. “Longer we’re in it, the more bodies we disturb.”
“You don’t say,” Maxwell says, wiping ichor and pond scum off his face.
The Warden laughs while forging ahead, blocking blows and keeping the undead distracted while Maxwell picks them off. They kill the ones following them out of the water while Varric, Sera, and Dorian take care of the rest still wading through the pond.
“Well,” Dorian says once they’re all on the same side of it. “That was exciting.”
Someone hollers from a distance. “You all right over there?” the Iron Bull shouts from the far side of Fisher’s End where he and several soldiers are finding solid ground to set up the barricades.
“Don’t go in the water!” Sera shouts back.
Something - someone, judging by the accompanying yelp - splashes. “Too late! Ha!”
She grips her bow tightly and glares at the now-tranquil pond. “She could’ve told us about the walking dead people. Everywhere’s water! How’re we supposed to stay out of it?”
“Well, we don’t have much of a choice.” Blackwall nods to the muddy road vanishing into the damp gray distance. “Road should take us to the other side of this bog and I bet it doesn’t stay above the flooding.”
“Lovely,” Varric says. “Should’ve worn better boots.”
“I should’ve stayed in Val Royeaux,” Dorian says.
Maxwell sighs.
The Fallow Mire does not improve.
The Inquisition spends the next three days trekking through soggy turf and on muddy roads, searching for a path around the flooded bog. That’s what Harding claims, though to Maxwell it feels like they’ve been in the Mire for over a week - the days are impossible to measure under a perpetually overcast sky and some have started complaining about the lack of sun. Maxwell won’t admit that he also misses the night sky and the ominous Breach over the mountains.
The nights are worse. Deep darkness shrouds the Mire and the fires struggle to burn in the damp, putting people in a terrible mood. Shifts rotate every two hours, braving the rain to watch for Avvar scouts and the occasional shambling corpse. Maxwell often stays awake long after his turn is over, stubbornly reading Sister Petrine by valiant firelight under an awning in the middle of camp.
“Boss,” the Iron Bull says on the fourth night. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
He shrugs and turns the page. “Not tired yet.” He frowns when a raindrop dots it and adjusts his cloak to shield the book from windblown rain. “I’ll turn in when you do.”
“All right, then.” The Iron Bull continues sharpening his battleaxe with a borrowed whetstone for a few seconds. “Mind if I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“Something going on between you and the resident Vint?”
He looks up sharply. “Like what, exactly?”
“Oh I don’t know, whatever it is you two get up to late at night?”
He grimaces at the sly insinuation. “Sometimes I have bad nights and he can’t sleep, so we fight it out.” The Iron Bull stares at him. “I sleep better after dodging life-threatening spells for a half-hour. Why? What are you implying?”
“You know exactly what I’m implying,” the Iron Bull drawls. “After what I heard about you and the commander, it’s not hard to guess.”
Maxwell almost buries his face in his hands but that would mean dropping the book. “Didn’t know your reports included details on whatever love life you think I have.”
“Ha! No, they don’t give two shits about that. I just pick these things up. Old habits die hard, especially around interesting people.”
“You think I’m interesting?”
“There’s a hole in the sky and that thing on your hand’s the only key to closing it. You can’t tell me that’s not interesting. And for someone barely grown into his breeches, you’re doing all right leading this Inquisition.”
“I’m not,” he says. “Cassandra and Leliana are the leaders. They started this.”
“Right, because they’re the ones people go to for answers, for help, for solutions. You should stop selling yourself short.”
Maxwell opens his book again, not wanting to follow this conversation’s direction. That way lies the great unknown, a terrifying void with no answers for where his role in this quest to save Thedas will take him.
He reads a paragraph three times and then, almost desperately, asks, “What did you hear about me and Cullen?”
“It was incredibly painful and unforgettable to watch.”
He sighs. “Varric.”
The Iron Bull laughs. “Who else? Anyway, think my shift’s over.”
Right on cue, a bleary-eyed Sera sticks her head out of her tent. “What’s out there?”
“You in my spot,” the Iron Bull says cheerfully. “Also, rain. No corpses… yet.”
“Tits,” she mutters. “Why couldn’t I stay in Haven?”
“Shut the tent flap, dear, you’re letting in the cold,” Vivienne snaps from within the tent.
Maxwell assumes the rest of the night passed uneventfully, save for the brief
moment of consciousness before realizing he was only hearing the heavy rain against the tent’s canvas sides. If he has a hard time crawling out of his bedroll in the grey morning, he blames it on staying up late after spending the previous day walking through sticky mud and fending off stubborn corpses.
There may be a road going around the flooded lakes rather than through them. He and the others set off on the muddy path, determined to find where it ends. Five minutes after leaving Fisher’s End, the Iron Bull leans in and asks, “How you feeling, Boss?”
“Hm? Fine. Why?”
The Qunari shrugs. “You kept kicking my hip. And my leg. Almost got me in the crotch. Thought I’d have to hogtie you before you knocked the tent down.”
Someone behind them stifles a cough. Maxwell’s face burns and he stares at the murky lake, half-heartedly wishing for a bogfisher or a band of corpses to burst out to distract the others.
“I’m not usually - I can switch tents for the night or-”
“Don’t worry about it. Just wanted to know if you’re sleeping fine. People don’t do well with tons of rotting bodies walking out of lakes and ponds trying chop their heads off.”
“Try a castle full of red lyrium and Venatori,” Dorian mutters somewhere behind them.
“I’m fine,” Maxwell says and ends the conversation.
It doesn’t end in his head, though. He can’t stop thinking about the Iron Bull’s words, the knowing in his voice as he pries without prying. The Iron Bull will never understand what Maxwell sees at night because he wasn’t there when the faceless Elder One came for him and Dorian in a future the Breach was tearing apart. A quick glance at the mage confirms that Dorian is thinking of that same future.
They follow the muddy path along the lake. Rock formations loom before them. A rotten house sits at the end of a little strip of land still attached to the shore; Maxwell wonders who thought it a brilliant idea to build a home there. He looks around for signs of other houses and sees the silhouette of a stone pillar erected on top of a grassy knoll. It looks exactly like a pillar they found near Fisher’s End two days ago.
He wishes he didn’t see it. “Look.”
Varric groans. “Oh come on.”
Dorian is already marching up the hill, undeterred by the slippery patches of grass or the slope. Maxwell follows close behind and watches him circle the pillar, searching. Dorian stops and taps one of the pillar’s sides. “There’s another rune here. Can’t read it without veilfire, though.”
The Iron Bull looks at the pillar and then at Dorian warily. “That weird magic fire. Right.”
“Can’t we just walk away, pretend we never saw it?” Varric asks.
“Someone left the rune here for a reason, someone I’m starting to suspect is hiding somewhere in this shithole,” Dorian replies. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to know why.”
“And what if lighting the beacon releases another demon?” Maxwell asks.
“Really. After everything we faced, you’re telling me you’re scared of a single demon? Don’t worry. I’m here,” Dorian says and lights the beacon.
“Well that’s reassuring,” Varric mutters, and then hauls Bianca out when something shrieks in the rain.
Twenty minutes later, Maxwell kicks the last corpse back into the black waters and Dorian sets it on fire; up on the slippery hill, the Iron Bull shouts triumphantly while slamming his axe into the demon’s head, splitting it open.
“Never seen a more stubborn bunch of dead people,” Varric says while yanking crossbow bolts out of a slimy ribcage. “And I’ve been on Sundermount.”
Maxwell wobbles while pulling himself out of the muck at the water’s edge and Dorian catches him, steadying him while he tries not to lose his boots to the bog.
“Thanks,” he says, smiling, and looks up at the lit beacon. “So, the rune?”
“... what? Oh, right. The rune.” Dorian still waits until he’s on solid ground before going back up the hill. “Time to unravel the mystery.”
While Dorian transcribes the symbols into his little notebook, Varric and the Iron Bull go poking through the rotting crates and sacks littering the hill and a small dock at the edge of another pond. Varric finds a soggy leather-bound journal and carefully opens it. He reads a damp page and loudly says, “Think I found something, Sparkler. Hey, Pavus! Talking to you.”
“Did you just call me ‘Sparkler’?”
“Flashy guy that likes zapping things with a big stick. So, Sparkler. What, it works.” Varric holds up the journal. “Written by someone named Widris. Might be a mage judging by their… dealing with demons.”
“They never know better,” the Iron Bull says, shaking his head.
“Explains the ones bound to these pillars,” Maxwell says, glancing at the residue the spindly demon left on the ground. “Ready to go?”
“Just a moment!” Dorian scribbles furiously before tucking his notebook away and following the others down the knoll.
The road takes them past old stone ruins and wandering corpses to the steep palisades surrounding the mire. The path straddles the strip of land between stone and water, and leads them through a series of caverns to a clearing.
“Could set up camp here,” Varric suggests.
Maxwell looks around. “Agreed. Who wants to go back to Fisher’s End to tell the others?”
“Why did I agree to come here?” Dorian sighs.
It takes a full day to set up camp at Old Thoroughfare.
Most of the day was spent fishing supplies out of the water after someone slipped on the wooden bridge and fell into the four soldiers behind him. They stumbled into the water and the tidal wave brought out a horde of corpses that in turn drew the attention of a wraith lurking near the rotten house. The fighting was chaotic, people tripping over each other in their haste to either save the supplies or kill the undead.
“That was messy,” the Iron Bull said afterwards, grinning from ear to ear with mud and ichor splattered all over his face and chest.
“That was complete chaos,” Cassandra muttered while helping a soldier pull a sack out of the lake. “Once we set up camp, remind me to get that bridge repaired so that this doesn’t happen again.”
Blackwall and Dorian were the unlucky ones. Dorian couldn’t get out of the way of a sword-waving corpse fast enough and Blackwell kept fighting with an arrow sticking out of his right arm until everyone was safe.
“Barriers, dear,” Vivienne tutted while Dorian uncapped a small green vial and tilted its contents into his mouth. “I thought you knew better than that.”
“Must’ve slipped my mind.”
“I suggest not following the esteemed Herald headlong into danger next time. Your feet will thank you and you won’t be in range of those ghastly things.”
Sera sat on a stack of crates, a bundle of salvaged arrows in one hand and a half-eaten apple in the other. “Can we go now?”
In the evening, Cassandra pulls out Harding’s annotated map and points to a mark not far from Old Thoroughfare. “There’s a rift here but it’s not active. She also spotted an Avvar scout taking shelter in one of the houses.”
“Really? Just one?” Maxwell asks.
“Yes. According to Harding, he’s been there for days observing the rift. Hey may also be a forward scout waiting for you to appear.” Cassandra rolls up the map. “As long as there aren’t any setbacks, we should reach Hargrave Keep within five days.”
He wakes too soon after crawling into his bedroll, bolting upright with a gasp. Varric grunts and rolls onto his side, muttering about spikes; Maxwell prods the dwarf’s shoulder twice to reassure himself before forcing himself to calm. Faint firelight glows through the thick canvas and if he concentrates, he can hear the nightwatch talking quietly under the constant pitter-patter of rain.
Maxwell pulls a coat on and leaves the tent, flinching when the cold rain hits head and neck. He squints in the gloom before walking to the person standing next to the low stubborn fire at the heart of the camp. Dorian is staring at it, face blank, and seeming unaware that he’s drenched in rainwater.
“Didn’t you have first watch?” Maxwell asks.
“Sleep wouldn’t come to me despite everything I promised it,” Dorian replies. “Told the Iron Bull that I was more than happy to take his spot and he didn’t object. Looked pretty smug, actually.”
“Huh.”
A quiet minute passes before Dorian asks, “Bad dream?”
“Not about the Mire,” he says. “But this place doesn’t help. I almost miss seeing the Breach whenever I look up.” He rocks back and forth, feeling the mud give way under his boots. “Learn anything from those runes? Or did we fight a bunch of demons for nothing?”
“It’s a lot of nonsense, mostly. Without a cipher, I can’t make sense of them. The journal Varric found gave me plenty of clues, though. Its owner was definitely the mage who placed the runes and demons there. This ‘Widris’ is very paranoid and dealt with the demons in exchange for protection and power. I imagine you’ll want to stop them before they do something worse, like tear a hole in the Veil and create another Breach. It’s already very thin here. Wouldn’t take much effort to do it.”
Maxwell shudders at the thought and the echoes of the terror that woke him. “Let’s not go there. I don’t need another Breach.” He notices how Dorian favors his right side. “It’s not too bad, is it?”
“Hm? Oh, this?” Dorian touches his side with tentative fingers, grimacing a bit. “I’ve dealt with worse back home and on the road. This is nothing. Potion took care of it but the fellow who still insisted on poking and prodding me there isn’t letting me leave camp for another day. I’m afraid I’m grounded here, same as Blackwall.”
The fire continues burning despite the rain. Nightwatch putters around, watching the muddy road, the lakes, the caverns at the back of the camp. A bogfisher suddenly surfaces near the road through Old Thoroughfare and a soldier jumps back with a little shriek. Others laugh and slap him on the back while the creature snorts and waddles onto land.
Dorian sighs. “I’d propose something to preoccupy ourselves with but I’ll only aggravate this and I’d also like to not explain how you ended up in the middle of the lake and I instigated an invasion of murderous corpses.”
Maxwell huffs at the imagery. “That’ll be something.”
There are safer, less troublesome ways to pass the night - a book is waiting for him inside his pack - but he feels that itch, that restless need to do something. He looks at the two soldiers guarding the cavern entrance and a thought takes root.
“We can go back through there. Should be far enough from camp that we don’t wake anyone up.”
“And what do you suggest we do?” Dorian asks.
He thinks about the bogfisher and the chaos from earlier in the day. “Toss rocks into the water and kill whatever walks out. You don’t have to do anything complicated, the night won’t be a total waste, and we’ll have fewer corpses to deal with in the morning.”
Dorian brightens at the suggestion, a wide smile gracing his face. “Yes, let’s do that.”
When Maxwell slips back inside the tent much later in the night, Varric is awake and cleaning Bianca in the light of a small lamp. Varric’s nose crinkles. “Tell me you cleaned up first.”
“It was just the one corpse for requisitions. You can ask why they wanted the heart.” Maxwell sets his greatsword down and sheds the damp layers. He tries not to think of the slimy feel of the flesh he carved out or the damp moldy stench that won’t go away. “Don’t worry, we took care of the rest.”
Varric shakes his head while reassembling Bianca. “How worried should I be that you willingly went out there looking for things to kill at this hour, whatever this hour is?”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” he says and crawls into his bedroll.
He’s asleep in minutes, and he doesn’t dream.
“You sure we need to do anything? It’s not actively spewing demons at us. Why don’t we just keep moving and not go poking?”
“It’s not active now,” Vivienne says. “There’s always a risk it’ll open later and ‘spew’ those demons out. Better to lance the wound now than to let it fester.”
They watch the rift in question from a distance. The mark thrums quietly in Maxwell’s hand, unaware of what’s ahead.
Varric sighs. “I’m just saying.”
The Iron Bull suddenly stiffens. “Got company.”
A hulking figure is leaving one of the abandoned houses to pace around the inactive rift, a giant maul resting on his shoulders. He must be the Avvar scout Harding warned.
“What is he doing?” Maxwell wonders. “Is he just… watching it? Why?”
“You read about them, what do you think?” Varric asks.
He shrugs. “All the books I read stopped making sense after the Breach happened.”
“... okay, that’s fair.”
“The rift is the priority here,” Cassandra says. “If the Avvar scout refuses to back off, he can help us fight the demons.”
The scout turns around as they approach. Up close, he’s an even more imposing figure, clad in bulky lamellar armor and a fur-trimmed helm covering half his face. He sets his massive maul on the ground, holding it as easily as Vivienne does her stave.
“So you’ve finally come.”
Everyone tenses and Vivienne’s hands glow white with cold. The Avvar scout ignores them entirely; his eyes are on Maxwell’s left hand as he gestures to the twisting translucent wound in the Veil. “Can you heal this?”
“Heal? I… yes, I can close them,” Maxwell says carefully. His left hand twitches at the thought and the scout narrows his eyes. “But the only way I can get rid of this is to open it first and if I do, demons will come out.”
“Demons, I can fight. Not this.” The Avvar steps back and hefts his maul. “Show me, Herald of Andraste.”
At a nod, the others fan out, weapons unsheathed, bracing for the inevitable. Maxwell looks around and then raises his left hand. His breath hitches at the shock of magic as the mark reaches into the rift and pries it open. Green wisps arc out of the tear, demons spilling into the physical world; they materialize and immediately lunge at the nearest living thing. He reaches for his greatsword as Vivienne wraps a barrier around them.
The nearest shade freezes in ice and he slams his sword pommel into it, shattering the demon. The Iron Bull charges past and plows into a group of demons, swinging his axe and tossing them aside. One hits Cassandra’s shield and she guts it; she then shouts in Nevarran at the two demons advancing on Varric, distracting them; Varric quickly unloads Bianca on their exposed backs while leaping out of danger. Vivienne immolates them with a searing fireball that drives back the gloom and lights up the Mire like sunlight. It does nothing to the rageful demon pulling itself out of the rift.
“Behind you!” Cassandra shouts.
Maxwell wrests his sword out of a shriveling demon. He turns with a heavy swing as the demon lunges for him with burning claws. Something slams into its head and it slumps over, stunned. Maxwell stares at the Avvar’s glowing maul and then slashes the demon when it groans and flares brightly. Vivienne sends a frigid bolt of energy at it and the demon’s flames extinguish. She throws another barrier while the Avvar turns his magicked maul on the massive enraged demon the Iron Bull cornered at the water’s edge.
A rain of crossbow bolts stop several demons in their tracks. Maxwell and Cassandra cut them down, clearing the way back to the rift. He sees hazy figures on the other side of the Veil tear, demons congregating to escape into the physical world.
“Now, Herald!” Cassandra shouts.
His left hand almost touches the rift and the shock of magic nearly brings him to his knees. Cassandra steadies him while he wills the mark to seal the rift. A shade’s arm thrusts out, trying to scratch his face, and drops to the ground as the rift vanishes.
“Lovely,” Varric says, looking disgusted with the dissolving arm. He checks Bianca over for damage before slinging her over his shoulder and goes searching the muddy ground for intact bolts.
Maxwell turns to the approaching Avvar scout. The towering man is staring at the mark burning hotly on his hand and he closes his fingers around it before moving it behind his back.
“So the rumors are true,” the Avvar says. “The Lady of the Skies has chosen you.”
The Avvar goddess of the sky and the dead. Of course the Avvar would think the Breach had something to do with her. He searches through his memories and then asks, “Are you a Sky Watcher?”
The Avvar startles, looking him over with suddenly critical eyes. The man then smiles as he comes to some silent understanding. “She has chosen well.”
“If someone can explain….” the Iron Bull loudly whispers.
“I speak for the Lady of the Skies. I read her portents and pass her messages on to those who would listen. She has spoken. Before me stands the one who would heal her and save us.” The Sky Watcher shakes his head. “The Hand of Korth would not listen. He believes challenging and defeating your Herald would bring greater glory to Korth than killing the Tevinter men roaming the south. That is why he took your soldiers.” The Avvar gestures up the road crossing Old Thoroughfare. “Beyond this point, his men search for you.”
“Tevinter?” Cassandra demands, nearly shouldering Maxwell aside. “I have not heard of this. Explain.”
“They’re gone now. I believe your people had something to do with that,” the Sky Watcher says. “They were moving west into the Frostback Basin but they retreated, leaving the Hand with few ways to earn his god glory. You are now the only worthy challenge.”
“So… you’re not with him,” Maxwell says. “Then why did you come here?”
“I read her will in the bird flocks and the clouds. She told me to come and see,” the Sky Watcher says. “I witnessed and I am satisfied with the answer.”
Maxwell wonders what Solas would say to this. He wonders what others in the far corners of Thedas think while looking at the supernatural monstrosity high above them and how they would understand it.
Vivienne clears her throat.
“Thank you for your warning, Sky Watcher,” he says. “And for helping us with the demons. I… hope to do your Lady proud. Goodbye.”
They leave him in the clearing. Maxwell looks over his shoulder to see the Sky Watcher kneeling in the mud to examine residue left behind by the dying demons. The man’s great maul glimmers in the dark, the stained steel head crackling faintly with enchantment.
“How do you know so much about the Avvar?” Cassandra eventually asks while they’re picking their way across broken bridges, careful not to disturb the water.
“I read a lot when I was young,” he says. “Couldn’t help my father with his work and I was the only child in the house. What else was there to do?”
“Your reading habits seem rather… worldly, for a Trevelyan,” she says.
“Says the Pentaghast reading the-”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she huffs, daring him to give away the serial’s name.
“You’re both weird,” Varric says.
A few minutes later, Vivienne’s shoulders stiffen and she quickly raises her head. “That apostate Dorian mentioned. I believe they’re nearby.”
“How can you tell?” Maxwell asks, squinting into the gray. He only sees rotting trees clinging to islands in the flooded lake.
“The Veil here is already thin. Consorting with demons in such a place leaves an… aura, if you will. A poisonous one, full of ill intent and reckless foolishness,” she replies, contempt dripping from every word. “If this apostate is as paranoid as your mage says it is, then we must tread carefully.”
“He’s not my mage,” Maxwell says and gets a dismissive hum in response.
The Iron Bull sticks his axe through a corpse shuffling mindlessly around a mound of dirt and rock between bridges. Maxwell then slips on rotten wood and stumbles into the water, rousing corpses buried in the silt. He tells Cassandra and the Iron Bull to stay back when they try to follow him in. “You’ll just wake more of them!”
“He’s got a point,” Varric says while quickly winding up Bianca. He shoots down a shambling corpse and reloads the crossbow. “Get your ass out of the water, Herald. Iron Lady and I’ll cover you.”
“Damn,” the Iron Bull sighs. “Was itching for another fight.”
“Another time, darling,” Vivienne says and sets a corpse on fire.
She and Varric maintain a barrage of magic and bolts while Maxwell climbs back onto land. The last corpse tries to stab his leg with its rusted sword but the Iron Bull kicks it away, breaking its spine in two.
The bridge takes them to a stone-crowned hill topped with a pillar and a familiar unlit beacon. The Iron Bull groans loudly. “How about we don't light it with that magical shit this time?”
Cassandra walks around the pillar with a critical eye and a hand resting on her sword pommel. “Explain to me how this works.”
“The apostate put runes on these beacons,” Maxwell explains. “Only way to read them is by lighting the beacon with veilfire but every time Dorian lit one, it summoned a demon. And corpses.”
“Really? And what was so important about these runes that the apostate set traps?”
He shrugs. “They’re coded messages. He can’t read them without a cipher.”
Cassandra glowers at the tower and then says, “Light it. I don’t like the idea of this apostate harnessing demons in this place or an unsuspecting mage accidentally summoning one out of curiosity.”
“That’s exactly what Sparkler did the first time,” Varric sighs while unslinging Bianca.
The mage Widris is clever; seconds after Vivienne tips veilfire into the beacon, two demons leap out of the Fade with inhuman screams. One staggers back, shot in the shoulder, and the Iron Bull swings his greateaxe at it. The other demon lunges for Vivienne, who blurs an eerie blue and materializes on the other side of the hill. The demon staggers, crusted in ice, and Cassandra smashes it with her shield. Before Maxwell can deliver a fatal blow, the demon rips into the Veil and leaps in.
“Spread out!” he warns.
Something scrapes the side of his face, drawing blood. He whirls around and raises his greatsword to block a corpse’s unsteady swing. Behind him, Varric cocks and aims Bianca at an undead archer trying to make its second shot count.
Cassandra leaps back from the green pooling under her feet but not fast enough. The demon leaps out and swipes her with its spindly limbs, knocking her down. Vivienne steps in between the Seeker and the terror demon, and throws it back with a fireball. The Iron Bull stands on the slope, bellowing in Qunlat while battering down the other demon and shrugging off the undead crawling out of a nearby flooded pond. Vivienne turns and slings out a long arcing lightning bolt that stops the corpses in their tracks. She follows with another fiery explosion and charred bones drop in the mud.
“Running out of bolts here!” Varric shouts, retreating as more corpses crawl uphill.
Maxwell aims at a terror demon’s leg and cripples it with a swing before sprinting to the dwarf’s side. He shoulders aside the undead trying to flank Varric and kicks a few back downhill. Something glows vividly green and he immediately looks at his left hand. The anchor isn’t reacting to something so what - he glances down at the Veil tearing underfoot just as a terror demon launches itself out of the Fade and throws him into the stone pillar.
“... rift but there’s nothing we can do until he wakes. We need to return to camp-”
“With an injury like that, moving him will more likely kill him….”
Maxwell cracks his eyes open and twitches when an raindrop lands on his eyelashes. His head throbs dully and his mouth tastes like bitter grass. He slowly pushes himself up against the cold wet stone he’s leaning on and his body screams in protest. He breathes harshly through the pain, willing it to subside, and tilts his head up to look at Varric standing nearby, twirling an empty glass vial between gloved fingers.
“He’s up,” Varric announces and he flinches. The dwarf notices and asks in a lower voice, “How’re you feeling?”
Maxwell has to think about it. “... awful.”
The longer he’s awake, the more aware he becomes of the soggy turf he’s sitting on and the darkening gloom surrounding the hill. He rubs water and mud off his face and twitches at a stinging sensation on his cheek, carefully prods it to confirm a graze there. He looks at the skeletal gray bodies littering the ground and at the cleaned greatsword leaning next to his head on the stone pillar. Cassandra and the Iron Bull are surveying the area around the hill; somewhere nearby, Vivienne hums an Orlesian melody under her breath.
“I got knocked out,” he sighs.
“You got knocked out,” Varric says. “Guess Hawke’s not the only hardhead I make a habit of following around, for better or worse.”
He flushes at the casual comparison to Kirkwall’s infamous Champion and laughs weakly. “There must be more to the Champion than having a thick skull.”
Varric makes a show of thinking about it. “Nah.”
Cassandra and the Iron Bull finally turn and approach him and Varric. She crouches in front of Maxwell; her face is stained with mud though the persistent rain is slowly washing it clean. “How are you feeling?”
He shrugs. “Could be worse.”
“Thankfully, it’s not,” she says and points down the hill in the opposite direction of Old Thoroughfare. “There’s a small path leading into the wilds that Harding calls the ‘Den’. She marked a rift there. Vivienne also believes the apostate is hiding nearby, but we’ll wait until you’re well enough to fight.”
“That demon threw you pretty hard,” the Iron Bull adds. “I’ve seen soldiers bleed out their ears, or drop dead the next day after complaining of a headache. How’s yours feeling, Boss?”
“Think I’ll live,” Maxwell says. He tries to gather his feet under him to prove it but everything protests. He settles against the beacon. “Now what?”
“If you can’t walk back to camp, I’ll bring it here,” Cassandra declares. “Varric, Vivienne?”
“Yeah, yeah, you didn’t need to ask,” Varric says.
“I’ll keep watch for the apostate,” Vivienne says. She’s on the other side of the pillar. “This Widris won’t get past me.”
Maxwell sighs, knowing they’re going to lose whatever “daylight” they have left moving camp here and making sure the Herald doesn’t drop dead of a headache, which sounds like a terribly embarrassing way to go. “I’m sorry. I should’ve-”
“I sincerely doubt anyone will blame you for being attacked by a demon,” Vivienne says. “But next time, dear, invest in a steel helm.”
“I don’t like them,” he mumbles, earning a chuckle from Varric. “So what did I miss?”
“Oh, just me caving that demon’s head in after you went down,” the Iron Bull says cheerfully. “Cassandra gutted the other one. After that, the undead were a piece of cake. Too bad you were out for most of it, Boss. It was satisfyingly violent.”
Cassandra rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you’ll find more things to cave in soon enough. Let’s go.”
“Got dragged through half the bog, eh? Bet Vivvy didn’t like that! No baths here. Gotta stick it out in the muck like the rest of us nobodies.”
Vivienne ignores Sera entirely and tosses something at Dorian while striding by in her muddy wedge-shaped heels. He drops his journal to catch it and stares at her in confusion.
“The apostate’s journal,” she says curtly. “I hope this cipher you talked about is in there or the entire day will have been a waste.”
Both of Blackwall’s busy eyebrows hit his hairline as he stares at Maxwell, Cassandra, and Varric trudging into camp. “Did you fight the entire swamp?”
“Very funny,” Varric grumbles while shaking mud off of his boots. “Almost wish I got hit with an arrow so I could sit that shit out. Two days of mud, demons, skeletons, and apostates, and I never, ever want to see another revenant again.” He glowers at the sky. “Can’t believe I miss Haven.”
Everyone misses Haven. The soldiers patrolling the hill grumble and glower at the sky, the waters, the mud under their squelching boots. Maxwell feels for them; he grew up along the Waking Sea and even he wasn’t prepared for the persistent heavy damp of the Mire.
“Report,” Cassandra asks of a soldier and Maxwell cocks his head towards them.
“Spotted three Avvar soldiers up the road, Seeker,” the soldier replies promptly. “They’re either unaware of our presence or keeping their distance.”
“Double the patrols and salvage what you can from the abandoned houses for barricades. They’re not ambushing us at night.”
“Yes, Seeker.”
Maxwell slowly pulls off his vambraces and wet gloves before sitting down in front of the campfire. The low fire sputters and burns valiantly, providing light rather than heat. It only takes minutes for him to start shivering but he’s reluctant to retreat to his tent, to make himself stand up and walk. His head isn’t such a mess now but his body aches to the bone.
“Got no more demons to worry about, right?” the Iron Bull asks. “Apostate didn’t set any more traps or that magic fire shit, right?”
“I hope not,” Maxwell says. He wipes water off his face and looks at Dorian. “Anything in there?”
“Besides the paranoid ramblings of a pretentious egocentric mage?” Dorian asks while skimming the journal. “Making sense of this could take days. Ask me then.”
Cassandra joins them by the fire. “Avvar are spread thin between here and the keep. Can you fight, Blackwall?”
Blackwall shakes his head. “Arm’s still out of commission.” He shows her his arm; pale pink is leaking through the bandage wound tightly around it. “All this rain isn’t helping.”
“Then you should be in your tent rather than out here. Sera?”
“Fine, fine. I’ll go.”
“Who wants some bad news?” Dorian suddenly asks.
The Iron Bull groans. “Don’t tell me the apostate hid more magical booby traps out there.”
“Well….”
They stare at the stone pillar, the unlit beacon, and then at Dorian.
“Just get this over with,” Cassandra sighs, unsheathing her sword.
Better prepared for Widris’s tricks, they easily counter and overwhelm the demons and shambling corpses summoned by the veilfire beacon. Afterwards, Cassandra nudges aside a demon’s crumbling body distastefully and says, “That had better be the last of them.”
Dorian holds a handful of veilfire up to a face of the pillar. “According to the journal, this is the last one.” He slowly moves the veilfire across the wet stone and writing shimmers in the eerie light. “I think our wayward apostate was concocting a poison.”
“That’s my alley.” Sera yanks an arrow out of a corpse’s punctured skull. She makes a face while flicking off the bits of grey matter stuck to the arrowhead. “Can I use it?”
“She made deals with demons to protect a poison recipe?” Maxwell asks incredulously, raising a hand to touch the back of his head.
“Not just that but like I said, it’ll take days to decipher her words.” Dorian looks around before picking up a piece of a broken crate. He shoves it into Maxwell’s hands and moves the veilfire onto it. “Hold it here.”
Cassandra looks out at the towering natural stone pillars that give the Weeping Spires its name while Dorian copies the ghostly runes into his notebook. “As soon as he’s done, we’re moving. I see the keep and the road is clear.”
“But no Avvar,” Sera says. “Weird, right? Thought they wanted to fight you.”
They soon learn why the Avvar are spread so thinly across the bog. They walk past the abandoned houses at the Weeping Spires, searching the wet shadows and murky waters for an ambush. No Avvar ever emerges from the dark but when Maxwell steps onto a narrow strip of land connecting Hargrave Keep to the rest of the bog, a corpse lurches out of the waters. It tumbles back into the lake, an arrow sticking out of its head. The lake churns and more corpses shuffle out onto land.
Vibrant green washes over them as Maxwell hefts his greatsword and Sera says, “Can’t you say something before you do that?”
“No,” Dorian replies cheerfully and promptly sends a fireball at three shambling corpses with a flourish.
“Ugh, mages.” Sera notches an arrow and dances out of the way of a swinging rusted sword. “Can’t catch me!” She lets the arrow fly. “Eat it!”
Maxwell kicks the staggered body, sending it crashing into another with such force that they both go down in pieces.
“Ate it!” Sera laughs and darts away while grabbing another arrow from her quiver.
Skeletons and gray corpses keep hauling themselves out of the lake. Every time Maxwell dismembers one, two more take its place. They come in a relentless wave, crowding the path and obscuring the way. Maxwell almost loses sight of the others while trying to avoid the swords and axes swinging wildly at him. He forces the undead back with a sweep of his greatsword, knocking them off their feet. Dorian immolates the survivors.
“How many are there?” Maxwell wonders despairingly when more crawl out of the lake.
“Too many,” Cassandra says. She bashes two corpses with her shield and then points to the keep’s open gate with her sword. “We can’t fight them all. Retreat to the keep and shut the gate.”
They run. Cassandra bulls her way through the horde and Maxwell knocks aside the flankers with his sword pommel. They sprint through the gate and Dorian raises a wall of flame to keep the undead at bay. One promptly tries to walk through the fire but Sera fires an arrow at the burning corpse, sending it staggering back into its companions.
Maxwell looks up at the locked gate and then around the keep’s courtyard for the lever. He finds instead a trio of startled Avvar, one sitting behind a barricade of old crates and two looking down from the wooden walkway up to the ramparts.
“We have company,” he says loudly.
“Kaffas,” Dorian mutters and quickly casts a barrier right as the bowmen on the walkway loose their arrows.
“But where’s the lever?” Maxwell asks while dodging another arrow.
“It must be on the battlements,” Cassandra says behind her raised shield. “Sera, shut the gate before the dead get through.”
“Right, right, I’m on it, Lady Bossypants!”
She leaps up the stairs and darts around the bowmen, tripping one for good measure and jabbing another in the thigh. Cassandra chargers the Avvar warrior on the ground, blocking his greataxe and slicing his leg before being shoved back. Maxwell flanks the warrior, swinging hard at the man’s exposed side; ribs crack and the Avvar roars in pain, lashing out with his axe and forcing Maxwell aside. An arrow bounces off his pauldron and Maxwell looks up to flinch away from the arrow aimed at his face.
The keep’s gate screeches shut. Sera cackles and the bowman notching another arrow suddenly curses and drops his bow. He grabs at the arrow sticking out of his shoulder and turns around as Sera leaps from the battlements onto his shoulders. She shoves an arrow into his neck; blood sprays from the wound as he staggers, grabbing uselessly at her and the arrow shaft before sinking to his knees. The other archer tries to attack but she pins her wrist to the railing with another arrow. Sera yelps when Dorian throws a bright fireball up at the Avvar.
“Watch it!” she snaps and he salutes her in response.
Meanwhile, Maxwell and Cassandra continue harassing the Avvar warrior, wearing him down. They dodge the swinging greataxe or deflect the sharp edges, dart in whenever he leaves an opening for a quick jab or pommel strike. The Avvar, bleeding profusely from wounds all over his body and wheezing thanks to his broken ribs, gnashes his teeth and abruptly charges Maxwell. The man stumbles when Dorian slings out a bolt of energy, thrown off-stride, and that ends up being his undoing. Cassandra comes up to him and sinks her blade into his back. The warrior falls to the ground.
“Dead,” she mutters and yanks her bloodied longsword out.
Maxwell wipes blood and rain off his face and looks up at the battlements at the telltale sound of a lock being picked.
“What is she doing?” Cassandra asks.
“Picking a lock?” he says and then winces when the side of his face stings.
The Seeker sighs and heads up the walkway. “She’s wasting our time. Stay here and keep watch while I-”
“Not until I jimmy it!” Sera shouts. “Stay back!”
Cassandra rolls her eyes while climbing the wooden steps. Maxwell watches her but hears the unmistakable sound of something being set on fire and turns around. Dorian steps back from the gate, satisfied with the burning corpses trying to grab him through the iron bars. At their feet are more burning bodies, the dead blackening beyond recognition.
“Overkill, don’t you think?” Maxwell asks.
“Only if you weren’t stuck in camp for several days surrounded by soldiers who flinched every time you offered to light the fire. Couldn’t wiggle my little finger without them reaching for their swords.”
He sighs inwardly. “I’ll talk to them.”
Above, Sera makes a triumphant sound and flings a door open. “See? If it’s locked, something good’s hiding behind it.”
“All I see are crates and moldy books,” Cassandra says flatly. Then, “Fine. Three minutes, then I’m dragging you out.”
“You’re never any fun.”
Maxwell huffs a laugh at Cassandra’s indignant sound while Sera trashes whatever storeroom she broke into. He turns to tell Dorian about Sera’s nimble fingers, and Dorian’s standing much closer than he remembers, looking concerned. “What is it?”
Dorian raises his hand as if to touch Maxwell’s face and the laughter stills at the back of his throat. The mage then changes his mind and gestures at his own face.
“You’re bleeding a bit right here. Must’ve happened during the fight with these barbarians.”
“Avvar. And that explains it.” Maxwell pulls a bloodstained glove off to carefully probe his cheek. He grimaces when he finds the graze. Maybe Vivienne is right and he should invest in a helm. “Can you heal it?”
“Ah,” and Dorian actually looks embarrassed. “Afraid not. Healing spells are not part of my repertoire. Never really had the temperament for it.”
“Really? If I was a mage, I’d learn a few healing spells. Everyone could use them.”
“I know a fair bit about inducing fear in others. And time magic, which was just a theory until several weeks ago. Also, barrier spells. My opponents are supposed to be dead by the time they wear off. I should’ve noticed it fade away during the fight.”
Maxwell frowns. “This isn’t your fault-”
“Guess what I found!” Sera bounds down the stairs ahead of Cassandra, waiting around a large book. “It’s full of words and pictures about Grey Wardens. I’m giving it to Blackwall.”
“He doesn’t seem the sort to read,” Dorian says skeptically. “I’m not even sure he knows how to.”
“Who cares? He’s always going on and on about the Wardens so he’ll be happy to have this.” She tucks it under her arm, then has second thoughts and stashes it in an old crate sitting under the walkway, far away from the carnage that left other crates in splinters. “Remind me to pick it up later.”
Cassandra rolls her eyes and points up the path to the keep’s main courtyard. “I spotted the camp but couldn’t count the numbers. If our soldiers were there, I couldn’t see. The Avvar don’t seem to know we’re here so we have the advantage, but be cautious. This Hand of Korth’s been waiting to fight you. There’s no telling what he might do to force it.”
The Hand of Korth is a towering man crowned with a leather helm and ram horns. Upon seeing Maxwell at the entryway to the keep’s roofless hall, he raises his great maul with both hands and armed Avvar warriors pour into the ruins while bowmen standing behind him notch arrows.
“Aw piss,” Sera grumbles and pivots around the nearest warrior to jab him behind the thigh with an arrow.
“Should’ve brought a basket of fruit,” Dorian remarks while blasting fire at the nearest Avvar warrior’s face. “Would’ve given him pause at the very least.”
Maxwell snorts at the thought. “He’d probably throw the apples at us.”
He cuts down an Avvar trying to strike Dorian from behind and knocks aside another attempting to flank Cassandra. Dorian freezes the Avvar woman in ice and unleashes lightning on the others in the narrow hall. Sera picks off two of the stunned Avvar and then aims at the Hand of Korth. Her arrow sinks into his shoulder but he only bellows and rips it out.
“Rather dramatic, isn’t he?” Dorian says. He casts fiery glyphs and two Avvar axemen immediately step on one, setting off a fiery explosion that lights up the gloomy setting.
“The horns are a nice touch,” Maxwell agrees while blocking an Avvar’s axe and shoving her into Cassandra’s longsword. “Not as impressive as Bull’s, though.”
He slashes another Avvar and grimaces when hot blood splatters all over his face. Dorian suddenly grabs his arm and hauls him out of the Hand’s way. The man’s maul cracks the stone where Maxwell was standing and sparks fly. The Avvar leader turns on Maxwell with all the grace of a charging druffalo and raises his maul; Maxwell jumps back at the first swing and blocks the second with his sword. His knees buckle under the Hand’s weight but he grits his teeth and pushes back.
Cassandra slams into the Hand’s side and holds fast when he turns on her with his maul. Maxwell staggers away from them, breathing hard, arms shaking badly. Dorian pushes him aside and summons a barrier before throwing fire at the Hand’s feet.
Sera leaps onto a crippled bowman’s shoulders and fires two arrows at the Hand before breaking the archer’s neck; one glances off the great ram horns and the other scrapes his arm. The Hand doesn’t notice and continues attacking Cassandra, hammering at her shield with his maul and backing her into the wall.
“Come on!” Sera growls, then spins on the balls of her feet and stabs an Avvar in the eye with her arrow. She jerks back at the last second to avoid an arrow fired from the dais.
“Sera!” Maxwell points to the steps at the end of the hall and the two bowmen standing on the dais, notching arrows. “Take them out!”
“I know, I know!” she yells back and sticks an arrow in the man sneaking up on him before running off.
Maxwell turns and cuts the man down, then ducks under a woman’s axe and slams the pommel into her side, cracking ribs. She stumbles, catches herself, and lashes out at him. Her axe glances off the breastplate, the closest anyone’s come to touching him. Cold fear and sudden hot rage block her next attack, break her axe, and take off her head.
At the other end of the roofless hall, Sera puts an arrow in the second archer’s neck, leaving the Hand of Korth the last one standing.
Maxwell lunges at the man’s exposed side. The warrior turns at the last second and swings the maul at his head. He twists away, hitting the ground hard; Cassandra runs in and slices the back of the Hand’s knee, crippling it. He yells and throws her across the hall.
“Cassandra!” Maxwell shouts and runs to her side. He doesn’t make it; the Hand’s maul comes down in front of him and he stumbles back to avoid the fatal blow. The maul pulverizes stone instead.
Sera leaps into the fray and fires an arrow into the Hand’s thigh. The Avvar grunts and pulls it out, smears blood all over his armor before lunging at her. Dorian summons another energy salvo that the Hand can’t shrug off and the man falls to both knees. He still blocks Maxwell’s greatsword with the maul’s heavy wooden shaft and grins bloodily as Maxwell staggers back from the impact.
“So that shaman was right,” the Hand says. “You’re just a northerner but even the Mountain-Father shows you favor.”
“Where are my soldiers?” Maxwell demands. “What did you do to them?”
“They’re locked away. Unharmed. It’s you I wanted to face. More glory from defeating your god’s chosen than those Tevinter invaders.”
“Rude,” Dorian says.
Maxwell takes another step forward, eyes never leaving the Hand’s. “I’m here now, but my fight isn’t with you. Tell us where they are and I’ll let you go.”
“Herald,” Cassandra begins.
“They’re here, somewhere,” the Hand says, “and I still breathe, Herald.”
He launches himself at Maxwell with a roar, maul held high. A barrier wraps around Maxwell as he jumps out of the way and Dorian flings a bolt of energy at the Hand, halting his momentum. The Hand turns on the mage, teeth bared, and stops again when Sera’s arrow sinks in between his ribs. He snaps off the shaft and braces himself against Cassandra’s strike. He shoulders her aside and then blocks Maxwell’s greatsword.
Maxwell is the stronger of the two now, unhindered by injury and angry. He pushes the Hand back and swings again, his sword cutting through leather, flesh, and bone. The Avvar warrior shouts while his right hand drops to the ground and throws a wild punch at Maxwell with the other; Maxwell ducks and then throws all of his weight and momentum into his greatsword as he brings it down on the crown of ram horns. The Hand drops like a wet sack.
Breathing hard, Maxwell lifts his sword and stares at the bent steel.
“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Dorian says faintly.
“Sure,” Maxwell replies with a nervous laugh. He drops the ruined blade to rake a shaking hand through his soaked hair. “Harritt’s going to kill me. Said he would if he had to forge me another.”
“Another?”
“We need to find our men,” Cassandra says while wiping blood and mud from her face. “If they’re here, they must be locked away somewhere - what are you doing?”
Sera looks up while going through the pouches on the Hand’s leather belt. “What? He’s dead. He’s not going to miss this.”
She holds up a rusted key and Cassandra snatches it. They go to the first door they see but the key doesn’t fit and no one responds to the pounding on the door. The next one yields nothing but they hear muffled noise from another door. She knocks on it and someone knocks back. Quickly, she unlocks the door and flings it open.
“Thank the Maker, a friendly face at last,” a soldier rasps from the back of a dimly lit moldy storage room. “Thought those bastards were going to keep us in here forever.”
Cassandra counts heads while the soldiers slowly mobilize, helping each other to their feet and picking up their gear. A few are injured, limbs bound with torn strips of cloth, but nobody appears to be deathly ill; in fact, they’re all in fine spirits knowing that the Inquisition saved them.
“They’re all here,” she says softly, relieved.
“Are you all right?” Maxwell asks the nearest soldier and the entire room slowly turns to stare at him.
“Herald?” someone says wonderingly. “He’s here?”
“He actually came for us,” another soldier whispers too loudly.
“We’re all right, ser,” says the soldier he asked. “Better, actually, now that you sprung us from this blasted keep.”
Maxwell shifts awkwardly, feeling cornered by the weight of their surprise and awe. “I….” And now Cassandra’s looking at him, too. “I’m glad you’re all safe. There’s a camp at the Misty Grove. Can you walk?”
“Yes,” an elf says and pats her bandaged arm. “Don’t worry about us, Herald.”
They emerge to find carnage in the ruined keep, the bodies of their captors lying all over the ground and bleeding into the mud and grass. Someone mutters darkly about the rain and nearly everyone concurs with their own murmurs and curses as they carefully step around the bodies. Everyone pulls up short at the silhouette of a tall stout Avvar warrior standing on top of the keep’s steps. Maxwell reaches for his greatsword and then realizes it’s the Sky Watcher from Old Thoroughfare. He gestures for Sera to lower her bow and for Dorian to dismiss his magic, and slowly approaches the man.
“So you defeated Movran’s brat,” the Sky Watcher says by way of greeting.
“I did.” He straightens himself, holds his head high. “What of it?”
“Like your Andraste, the Lady and now the Mountain-Father favor you. They have even sent the dead back into slumber, clearing your path through these lands. They are all signs that I cannot ignore.” The Sky Watcher looks up at the clouded firmament and then at Maxwell’s left hand. “The Lady led me to you and I cannot ignore her will. I wish to join your Inquisition.”