It was chaos outside the Chantry.
Romulus was resolved to make the most of it. The Inquisition soldiers and other volunteers that had remained behind to delay the Venatori and Red Templars were making them pay dearly for each inch, but the army assaulting Haven appeared endless, at least from the vantage of the Chantry steps, the highest point in the village. There were screams everywhere, clashes of steel, the smell of ash and burning, and blood. The snowy ground was stained red with it, or rather a deep maroon in the moonlight. Romulus had no idea what time it was, but the darkness suggested there were still several hours to go before the dawn.
The Herald assumed the lead of the small group, consisting of himself, Khari, Fiona, Meraad, and several Inquisition regulars. The way the soldiers looked to him might have made him awkward and uncomfortable days before, but now it gave him purpose. If this was to be his last night, it would be as a free man, and a free man was allowed to feel some measure of pride in the respect he had earned. They were all willing to follow his lead.
His lead was to avoid the Venatori as best as he could, taking a somewhat longer side route left out of the Chantry and around the still standing buildings on the village's perimeter. They were a small enough group to avoid significant attention, and between Romulus's crossbow and an archer among the regulars, they were able to quickly put down the few enemies they came across. Most of the Venatori were drawn to the greatest point of conflict, the rear guard still holding near the gate.
Only one of the trebuchets was still a feasible target. The dragon had obliterated one like a child would to a poorly crafted toy, and the other was too close to the battle still raging. They had to go for the farthest one, closest to the palisade separating them from the Venatori army. It was turned, of course, to face the enemy. They would need to turn it towards the mountains behind the village, raise up the counterweight, and load it with some of their scarce ammunition. It would take a good deal of time, and it was bound to draw attention, especially once the Herald's presence was called out, vulnerable and separated from the bulk of his forces.
The few Venatori around the trebuchet were dispatched quickly, leaving them with a brief moment to prepare. Two of the regulars stepped to the task of turning the siege weapon, while the rest formed a perimeter around them, preparing to intercept the first of the enemy forces to see the engine shifting, and be drawn to investigate.
It didnāt take too long. Though their efforts at avoidance had bought them time, and the rear guard were still fighting furiously at the gate, the turning of the trebuchet was bound to be noticed, and first on the scene were a group of Venatori, perhaps a dozen, a small unit that must have been on its way up to the Chantry, or else to flank the soldiers at the gate. Whichever it was, they were here now, and upon spying the Herald among the other soldiers, diverted their course immediately, charging right for the line of defenders in the way.
But the line stepped forward to meet them, the clash sudden and vicious. The archer among the regulars immediately fired on the Venatori with ice in her hands, and she dropped, fletching blooming like flowers from her chest and abdomen. The others seemed to have a preference for direct confrontation, which suited just fine.
Khari moved forward with the rest, but it wasnāt long before she was a bit out of formation, as her first swings forced the cluster of three foes she went for backwards quite far comparatively, and her third stroke hewed one down when he wasnāt fast enough in his scrambling backwards. It was hard to tell under the mask and in the semidarkness, but a fair guess was that she was grinning like a madwoman, and she bounced easily into the next hit, her cleaver clanging off a shield with a grating rapport and then the scrape of metal along metal. The other swung at her with a broadaxe, but she twisted, turning her whole body aside and darting away like a howling gale, diverting only to crash against the next foe before her with all the ferocity of just such a wind.
The scent of ozone began to hang heavily in the air then, as electricity crackled and arced across Meraad's arms and fists. He held a shield of a Venatori warrior with one hand, while the other repeatedly struck him in the face and sent a jolt of electricity through his body with each strike. When he finally let go, the shield held a scorch mark and smoke rose from the body.
A pair then rushed to greet him. The first approached with a sword drawn, but caught a heavy foot to the chest for the effort. Meraad's strength was great enough to put him on his back, but left the other rushing forward with a battle-axe. Meraad stepped forward and caught the haft at as the Venatori drew it back to swing and delivered a hard right, wrenching it free. He returned it by driving it deep between the man's neck and shoulder, cutting all the way to the spine and then some.
The axeman, however, had seemed to distract him from the swordsman, who now came in from the side. He never reached Meraad, however, as a heavy fireball caught him in the facemask, cooking his head inside his helmet. Following its trajectory revealed Fiona at the other end, a smoking staff in hand.
Romulus remained near the edges of the fight, more than once saving the lives of the regulars that fought with them from Venatori that sought to flank. Whenever he drew attention he retreated back, deflecting blows and rolling away, swifter to change directions than any of them could hope to be in their plate armor. They were being torn to pieces by the small, elite group, and clearly it was affecting their morale.
The Red Templars among the attackers were drawn more slowly to the battle, but indeed they seemed to carry more weight literally upon their backs. Two creatures, once human, staggered forward along the path back towards the gate and the main fight, their backs swollen and protruding from their armor, punctured with glowing red spikes. They had not the size of the behemoth that had crashed through the wall originally, but their faces and bodies were twisted horrors, and they roared with a fury upon spotting the fight before them.
The first of them to come in range began to writhe in what appeared to be pain, hunching over and clutching at his head. He shook violently, and small shards of red lyrium shot with velocity from his back, whistling through the air in clusters at the massed combatants. Romulus crouched down and lowered his targe in front of him, catching several of the shards, though one found his lower leg, and he grimaced as he stumbled backwards. Wrenching it free, he retreated behind the more durable, including the Venatori, whom the horrors did not seem to care if they wounded or killed in the process of their attack.
"Almost there!" cried one of the regulars from the trebuchet, as she and her partner worked tirelessly to aim the weapon. In the fighting, the first of the Inquisition in the group was cut down by a lyrium shard punching clean through his throat, a wound beyond the skill of any healer to mend.
The barrage of red lyrium spikes appeared to have torn several holes in Khariās cloak, which sheād taken refuge behind, but doing so had taken enough force out of the projectiles that theyād just clanged off her armor afterwards, and she bounded back to her feet, lunging for the red templar on the right, only for her trajectory to be intercepted by a shield, welded to his arm more than held as such, also spiked with crimson crystals. It was swung a great deal faster than an ordinary man would be cable of, and tossed her back several feet, where she landed in a crouch, springing up again and trying a different angle, this time meeting his sword with her own.
They clashed several times, the echoes from one ringing blow not even dying away before the next followed, and he managed to get a good hit in on one of the gaps in her piecemeal armor, punching a hole in her abdomen right around the left side of her waist. Khari didnāt even seem to notice, actually stepping farther forward and pushing the sword deeper to get the reach she needed to bury the cleaver at the juncture of the templarās neck and shoulder. He fell, and only then did her glance move down to the blade partway in her guts. She scowled and yanked it out, tossing it with no particular finesse at another Venatori trying to drive past the line of regulars. It didnāt do much by way of damage, but it was a distraction, one that the Inquisition soldier took advantage of, hefting his axe into the cultistās head with a loud crunch and splitting it like a log.
Meraad dropped the Venatori into a heap at his feet, his back littered with red lyrium spikes. Apparently, he'd grabbed the man moments before as an impromptu shield. While the red templar that had fired the spikes at him slowly waded toward him, Meraad apparently grew impatient and rushed to meet him instead. The electrical currents running through his arms faded away, and were replaced by a thin layer of stone. Once within distance, the templar swung a spike of red lyrium, more akin to a club than a sword, and struck Meraad in the side.
The force was enough to push Meraad out of his angle, but the Qunari proved stubborn and clung hard to the spike. With a great heave, Meraad drew the templar close enough to deliver a punishing headbutt, shattering some of the crystals from what used to be a man's head. He continued and pushed forward, taking the templar to the ground all the while summoning more stones to his arm. By the time Meraad sat atop the templar, his arm looked like a club, which he used to bash the rest of the red templar's head off.
Letting the stone peel from his arms, Meraad stood winded, a thin line of blood coming from his forehead, and quickly tried to make it back to their line. Another fireball flew past him from Fiona, and from behind him an explosion rang out.
"Herald!" one of the regulars called. "It's loaded, we just need to--" Her words were cut off by a powerful bolt of lightning from a Venatori spellcaster, throwing her away from the siege weapon, where she collapsed onto the ground in a smoking heap. Romulus put down the mage with his crossbow, loading another bolt swiftly as he ran towards the trebuchet. There was a question of time to deal with here: had they given the others long enough to get free? If this worked, they'd be buried under a literal mountain of snow.
It didn't matter in the end, however, as an ominous beating of wings upon the wind preceded a powerful explosion in the palisade, a ball of fire erupting and sending large chunks of wood and earth everywhere. A shockwave of force punched Romulus back, tossing him through the air, and leaving the rest of the combatants at the very least momentarily stunned. Romulus hit the ground painfully, tumbling to a stop, blinking the bleariness from his eyes. Through the intense haze of the flames, he could see figures beginning to emerge, striding confidently through.
From the look of them alone, these were the very cream of the crop when it came to the Venatori. With but a single exception, every last one of them was garbed in blindingly-white robes, accented with silverite armor pieces, and armed with a staff. They marched in lockstep, regimented like a highly-disciplined military force, quite unlike their lower ranks, or any known group of mages in Thedas. If they resembled anything, it was the way the Qunari beresaad movedāconfident, assured, and utterly as one.
At the front of the march was one figure noticeably different from the rest. Tall enough to distinguish himself from the others, he was also clothed head-to-toe in sable, a hood drawn up around his head. His shoulders and chest were protected by a metal so dark a red it was nearly black itself, some kind of bloodstone, maybe, for it lacked the glow of tainted lyrium. Where his troops marched, he prowled, with the kind of feral grace that belonged almost exclusively to predatory cats. The entire left half of his face was covered with some kind of mask, so white it could have been made from porcelain, bone, or pearl, which reflected the scant light with noticeable brilliance.
The uncovered half of his face was quite well-structured, one dark brow set over a darker eye, his skin smooth and unlined, stretched taut over a patrician bone structure. The half of his mouth that could be seen wore a pensive scowl, one that deepened when Fiona and the remaining regulars stepped forward, the first to recover and pick themselves up from the shockwave.
Together, they loosed: two arrows and an impressively-sized fireball flew towards the formation. The Venatori reacted immediately, a couple near the front throwing up barriers to protect the ranks as they continued forward. The man in black, however, met the magical flames with a sneering indifference, raising one hand and summoning his own flames, which flew outwards and made contact with the Grand Enchanterās, engulfing and consuming them before continuing forwards to smite Fiona herself, who fell to the snow with a strangled cry, her unmoving form smoking copiously as flames licked at her hair and clothes, blackening her flesh. There was simply no way sheād survived.
The regulars fell swiftly after, as the Venatori lowered the barriers and volleyed magical projectiles at the group.
In their wake strode a monster, a humanoid form easily outmatching even the likes of Leon in height. He regarded the flames as though they were nothing, even as they licked at his tattered robes and threatened to catch fire. He had not the commander's density, however. His arms and the fingers upon his hands were overly long, and somewhat spindly, each tipped with black pointed nails of several inches. His body was lined with small plates of red lyrium, as though it were fused into his very skin, but that same skin did not feature the same kind of corruption present in the other red templars. No, it was paler, more akin to a corpse or even...
Darkspawn. The thought occurred to Romulus just as the black, hideously twisted dragon screamed again and flew overhead, bending around to land with a cataclysmic shaking of the earth nearby. Its attention, and that of the tainted giant striding ahead, were focused solely on Romulus, on the Herald. He tried to move, but looked down to find a sizable piece of splintered wood from the palisade impaling his lower leg, another smaller one protruding from the right side of his abdomen. His shield was on the ground nearby. He rolled over and grasped for it, though he knew not what use it would be to him at this point.
Someone stepped into Romulusās line of vision, between him and the oncoming forces. The hem of the red cloak and the pattern of metal banding over the personās boots was enough to mark that person as Khari. She rose up onto the front pads of her feet, shifting her center of gravity lower, and he could hear her draw in a ragged breath, letting it hiss out again between her teeth. She lunged into a sprint, sword trailing out to the left of her, and several bright flashes of fire or lightning were hurled for her path, forcing her to dodge each time with bounding leaps and swift trajectory changes. Most struck the ground instead of Khari herself, throwing up clouds of snow and dirt that made it difficult to tell what was going on, but a few sounded like they hit something different.
An enraged yell preceded the heavy whistle of a cleaver swing, but it was cut off by the sound of a blunt impact, a great crash, and Khari was ejected from the swirl of snow and smoke, thrown like a rag doll into the trebuchet itself, where she bounced off one of the thicker wooden beams that comprised it and landed to the side of the siege weapon. She did not stir.
A fireball then flew the other direction, angled upward above most of the human combatants, but eye level with the great black dragon. The fireball struck the creature in the nose and blossomed, but if it was anything other than annoyed, it certainly didn't show it. "Ataashi basra!" Meraad cried in Qunlat, flinging another fireball at the dragon's face. It had the same effect as the last, only serving to irritate the dragon further.
The creature, obviously tired of the Qunari flinging spells at it, strode forward a step, the ground shaking under its weight. Its neck craned and it loosed a deafening roar directed at Meraad, the force of which took his feet from under him and drove him onto his back. The dragon reached forward with its mouth and took Meraad in between his teeth. Meraad cried out in pain, but still fought defiantly. Stone and fire formed around his fist, which he used to assault the dragon's snout repeatedly. "Vashedan ataashi! Nehraa Asala!" He yelled.
The dragon had had enough. He shook his head viciously, causing Meraad's body to ragdoll sickeningly and ceasing his yelling. It snapped its jaws once more before discarding the now lifeless body by flinging it into the distance.
Romulus had staggered to his feet, shield in hand, throughout the efforts of Khari and Meraad to delay the inevitable. He wasn't even thinking anymore, incapable of comprehending what appeared to be his impending demise. It would be a good end, if only he could set off that trebuchet, which still somehow stood intact. He took a pained step towards it, clutching his side.
"Enough!" came a voice, oddly familiar to Romulus. It came from the giant darkspawn abomination, accompanied by a push of his hands that send a wave of magic over him, weak but still able to knock Romulus back onto his rear in his pitiful state. He recognized the tone, from the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, when they made their initial attempt to seal the Breach. There could be no doubt about it: this man, this thing was responsible.
"Pretender," he uttered with contempt. "You and the other toy with forces beyond your ken. No more."
"What is the meaning of this?" Romulus found himself asking, perhaps desperate for some kind of closure to the mystery surrounding his final months, before he died. He rolled and clambered painfully onto his knees. "What are you?"
The darkspawn's face was blank, void of emotion. "Mortals beg for truth they cannot have. It is beyond what you are, what I was. Know me, know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One! The will that is Corypheus!"
Corypheus. The name meant nothing to Romulus. Was it supposed to? Everything in the way the creature presented himself demanded it to be so. Instinctively, Romulus believed him to be insane, the result of red lyrium or the fact that he looked like a darkspawn of all things, and yet he spoke. He spoke with clarity of mind, intellect, purpose. He commanded an army, and they had long since encountered men and women that whispered of him, the Elder One. Romulus placed one foot upon the ground, trying to force himself to stand. The other managed to follow.
The Elder One shook his head. "You will resist. You will always resist. It matters not. You will kneel." It was then that Romulus noticed the object that he carried in his left hand. A metallic orb, heavy in appearance and intricately engraved. Romulus did not recognize its design as anything like what he'd seen Chryseis use. Corypheus lifted the object and it began to glow red from within, as did his opposite hand as he drew power of some kind into himself. He thrust the hand forward.
Instantly the mark upon Romulus's hand lit up, crackling with green energy that rippled all the way up his arm, sending stabbing pains into his chest, and he was soon forced back down to his knees, as the Elder One had predicted. Romulus gritted his teeth, bracing himself with his unmarked arm upon the ground. "I am here for the Anchor," Corypheus declared. "The process of removing it begins now." The pain intensified, until Romulus let out a roar of combined anger and agony.
"It is your fault, Herald. You and the girl interrupted a ritual years in the planning, and instead of dying, you stole its purpose." He drew more energy from the orb, and Romulus could feel his hand, his whole body, being pulled in the darkspawn's direction. His red eyes stared down at him, unfeeling. "I do not know how you survived. But what marks you as touched, what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens."
Behind him, the dragon hissed hungrily, closing in, and eyeing him like so much meat to be consumed. Romulus knew not what force stayed it from devouring him. He did not think it possible for a creature like a dragon to be tamed and commanded by any being. "And you used the Anchor to undo my work. The gall!" He then strode forward, glaring down at Romulus, until he came within arm's reach, at which point he thrust his free hand down, seizing Romulus by the arm and wrenching him up, easily lifting him entirely off the ground. He held him by the arm there, so that the mark on his palm was at eye level.
"I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the Old Gods of the empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. For a thousand years I was confused. No more." Truthfully, Romulus was in no state to comprehend anything he was saying, nor did he think he would understand it even were he in perfect health, but the words seemed to burn into his mind anyway, such was the force with which Corypheus spoke.
He leaned his face in closer, offering Romulus a brutally detailed look at the deformities of his skin, his face, his entire body. "I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world." Tevinter? But... "Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty!"
After one last glance at the mark, Corypheus scowled, and proceeded to hurl Romulus away. He smashed against the stone side of a well, several pieces of the rock falling some distance below. Romulus gasped for breath, and was rewarded with a severe stabbing pain that informed him of broken ribs, damaged organs. He only blearily heard the words Corypheus continued to speak.
"The Anchor is permanent. You have spoiled it with your stumbling. Perhaps the girl's can be removed. If not, so be it. I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation, and god, it requires."
From the angle heād landed at, Romulus was able to see the spot Khari had fallenāspecifically, that she was currently struggling to rise to her feet, and doing so rather quietly, considering. Her expression was twisted into a grimace of pain, and one of her hands held her side, but she lurched to her feet, outside the peripherals of Corypheus or any of his followers, whose attention was focused exclusively on him. The darkspawn advanced several more paces forward even as she stepped to the side, closing in on the trebuchet, ready to fire save that it was yet to be triggered, held in place by several ropes expertly tied.
āAnd you.ā Corypheus sneered down at him even as Khari struggled to pull herself up onto the trebuchetās platform, her sword held almost limply in the hand that wasnāt pressed to her abdomen. āI will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die.ā
āYeah, sure. Good luck with that, you ugly fuck.ā Khari grinned savagely when the attention diverted to her, the expression looking rather macabre considering the fact that she was bleeding from the mouth, crimson smearing from the corner of her lips, visible even under the steel mask, and staining her teeth. With very little fanfare, she raised her sword and chopped through the ropes holding the trebuchet in place, triggering the mechanism and firing the munitions at the side of the mountain. They landed a few seconds later with an ominous boom, low like thunder, and she huffed a sound like laughter, only much more pained.
āThe looks on your facesācompletely worth it.ā
Perhaps predictably, her words were answered with force: several of the Venatori flung spells at her, but she seemed to have been prepared for this, because she jumped off the platform, landing hard in the snow but keeping her feet, whereupon she bolted for Romulus, repeating something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like fuck, fuck, shit damn fuck! She zig-zagged frantically, narrowly avoiding most of the spells, at least until a lightning bolt went off too close to her feet and pitched her forward. She slid for several feet through the snow and scrambled up again, no longer using her hand to hug her abdomen, which now bled freely onto the ground, leaving a red trail in her wake.
āSorry Rom!ā She didnāt specify what the apology was for, but then, the rough way she grabbed his collar with her now-free hand might have had something to do with it. The projectiles had stopped as their enemies scrambled to get free of the impending avalanche, and Khari took the opportunity to drag him behind her, more or less, as she dove into the well heād come to a stop beside.
For a moment, they were weightless, and then they plunged into the dark below.
Romulus was resolved to make the most of it. The Inquisition soldiers and other volunteers that had remained behind to delay the Venatori and Red Templars were making them pay dearly for each inch, but the army assaulting Haven appeared endless, at least from the vantage of the Chantry steps, the highest point in the village. There were screams everywhere, clashes of steel, the smell of ash and burning, and blood. The snowy ground was stained red with it, or rather a deep maroon in the moonlight. Romulus had no idea what time it was, but the darkness suggested there were still several hours to go before the dawn.
The Herald assumed the lead of the small group, consisting of himself, Khari, Fiona, Meraad, and several Inquisition regulars. The way the soldiers looked to him might have made him awkward and uncomfortable days before, but now it gave him purpose. If this was to be his last night, it would be as a free man, and a free man was allowed to feel some measure of pride in the respect he had earned. They were all willing to follow his lead.
His lead was to avoid the Venatori as best as he could, taking a somewhat longer side route left out of the Chantry and around the still standing buildings on the village's perimeter. They were a small enough group to avoid significant attention, and between Romulus's crossbow and an archer among the regulars, they were able to quickly put down the few enemies they came across. Most of the Venatori were drawn to the greatest point of conflict, the rear guard still holding near the gate.
Only one of the trebuchets was still a feasible target. The dragon had obliterated one like a child would to a poorly crafted toy, and the other was too close to the battle still raging. They had to go for the farthest one, closest to the palisade separating them from the Venatori army. It was turned, of course, to face the enemy. They would need to turn it towards the mountains behind the village, raise up the counterweight, and load it with some of their scarce ammunition. It would take a good deal of time, and it was bound to draw attention, especially once the Herald's presence was called out, vulnerable and separated from the bulk of his forces.
The few Venatori around the trebuchet were dispatched quickly, leaving them with a brief moment to prepare. Two of the regulars stepped to the task of turning the siege weapon, while the rest formed a perimeter around them, preparing to intercept the first of the enemy forces to see the engine shifting, and be drawn to investigate.
It didnāt take too long. Though their efforts at avoidance had bought them time, and the rear guard were still fighting furiously at the gate, the turning of the trebuchet was bound to be noticed, and first on the scene were a group of Venatori, perhaps a dozen, a small unit that must have been on its way up to the Chantry, or else to flank the soldiers at the gate. Whichever it was, they were here now, and upon spying the Herald among the other soldiers, diverted their course immediately, charging right for the line of defenders in the way.
But the line stepped forward to meet them, the clash sudden and vicious. The archer among the regulars immediately fired on the Venatori with ice in her hands, and she dropped, fletching blooming like flowers from her chest and abdomen. The others seemed to have a preference for direct confrontation, which suited just fine.
Khari moved forward with the rest, but it wasnāt long before she was a bit out of formation, as her first swings forced the cluster of three foes she went for backwards quite far comparatively, and her third stroke hewed one down when he wasnāt fast enough in his scrambling backwards. It was hard to tell under the mask and in the semidarkness, but a fair guess was that she was grinning like a madwoman, and she bounced easily into the next hit, her cleaver clanging off a shield with a grating rapport and then the scrape of metal along metal. The other swung at her with a broadaxe, but she twisted, turning her whole body aside and darting away like a howling gale, diverting only to crash against the next foe before her with all the ferocity of just such a wind.
The scent of ozone began to hang heavily in the air then, as electricity crackled and arced across Meraad's arms and fists. He held a shield of a Venatori warrior with one hand, while the other repeatedly struck him in the face and sent a jolt of electricity through his body with each strike. When he finally let go, the shield held a scorch mark and smoke rose from the body.
A pair then rushed to greet him. The first approached with a sword drawn, but caught a heavy foot to the chest for the effort. Meraad's strength was great enough to put him on his back, but left the other rushing forward with a battle-axe. Meraad stepped forward and caught the haft at as the Venatori drew it back to swing and delivered a hard right, wrenching it free. He returned it by driving it deep between the man's neck and shoulder, cutting all the way to the spine and then some.
The axeman, however, had seemed to distract him from the swordsman, who now came in from the side. He never reached Meraad, however, as a heavy fireball caught him in the facemask, cooking his head inside his helmet. Following its trajectory revealed Fiona at the other end, a smoking staff in hand.
Romulus remained near the edges of the fight, more than once saving the lives of the regulars that fought with them from Venatori that sought to flank. Whenever he drew attention he retreated back, deflecting blows and rolling away, swifter to change directions than any of them could hope to be in their plate armor. They were being torn to pieces by the small, elite group, and clearly it was affecting their morale.
The Red Templars among the attackers were drawn more slowly to the battle, but indeed they seemed to carry more weight literally upon their backs. Two creatures, once human, staggered forward along the path back towards the gate and the main fight, their backs swollen and protruding from their armor, punctured with glowing red spikes. They had not the size of the behemoth that had crashed through the wall originally, but their faces and bodies were twisted horrors, and they roared with a fury upon spotting the fight before them.
The first of them to come in range began to writhe in what appeared to be pain, hunching over and clutching at his head. He shook violently, and small shards of red lyrium shot with velocity from his back, whistling through the air in clusters at the massed combatants. Romulus crouched down and lowered his targe in front of him, catching several of the shards, though one found his lower leg, and he grimaced as he stumbled backwards. Wrenching it free, he retreated behind the more durable, including the Venatori, whom the horrors did not seem to care if they wounded or killed in the process of their attack.
"Almost there!" cried one of the regulars from the trebuchet, as she and her partner worked tirelessly to aim the weapon. In the fighting, the first of the Inquisition in the group was cut down by a lyrium shard punching clean through his throat, a wound beyond the skill of any healer to mend.
The barrage of red lyrium spikes appeared to have torn several holes in Khariās cloak, which sheād taken refuge behind, but doing so had taken enough force out of the projectiles that theyād just clanged off her armor afterwards, and she bounded back to her feet, lunging for the red templar on the right, only for her trajectory to be intercepted by a shield, welded to his arm more than held as such, also spiked with crimson crystals. It was swung a great deal faster than an ordinary man would be cable of, and tossed her back several feet, where she landed in a crouch, springing up again and trying a different angle, this time meeting his sword with her own.
They clashed several times, the echoes from one ringing blow not even dying away before the next followed, and he managed to get a good hit in on one of the gaps in her piecemeal armor, punching a hole in her abdomen right around the left side of her waist. Khari didnāt even seem to notice, actually stepping farther forward and pushing the sword deeper to get the reach she needed to bury the cleaver at the juncture of the templarās neck and shoulder. He fell, and only then did her glance move down to the blade partway in her guts. She scowled and yanked it out, tossing it with no particular finesse at another Venatori trying to drive past the line of regulars. It didnāt do much by way of damage, but it was a distraction, one that the Inquisition soldier took advantage of, hefting his axe into the cultistās head with a loud crunch and splitting it like a log.
Meraad dropped the Venatori into a heap at his feet, his back littered with red lyrium spikes. Apparently, he'd grabbed the man moments before as an impromptu shield. While the red templar that had fired the spikes at him slowly waded toward him, Meraad apparently grew impatient and rushed to meet him instead. The electrical currents running through his arms faded away, and were replaced by a thin layer of stone. Once within distance, the templar swung a spike of red lyrium, more akin to a club than a sword, and struck Meraad in the side.
The force was enough to push Meraad out of his angle, but the Qunari proved stubborn and clung hard to the spike. With a great heave, Meraad drew the templar close enough to deliver a punishing headbutt, shattering some of the crystals from what used to be a man's head. He continued and pushed forward, taking the templar to the ground all the while summoning more stones to his arm. By the time Meraad sat atop the templar, his arm looked like a club, which he used to bash the rest of the red templar's head off.
Letting the stone peel from his arms, Meraad stood winded, a thin line of blood coming from his forehead, and quickly tried to make it back to their line. Another fireball flew past him from Fiona, and from behind him an explosion rang out.
"Herald!" one of the regulars called. "It's loaded, we just need to--" Her words were cut off by a powerful bolt of lightning from a Venatori spellcaster, throwing her away from the siege weapon, where she collapsed onto the ground in a smoking heap. Romulus put down the mage with his crossbow, loading another bolt swiftly as he ran towards the trebuchet. There was a question of time to deal with here: had they given the others long enough to get free? If this worked, they'd be buried under a literal mountain of snow.
It didn't matter in the end, however, as an ominous beating of wings upon the wind preceded a powerful explosion in the palisade, a ball of fire erupting and sending large chunks of wood and earth everywhere. A shockwave of force punched Romulus back, tossing him through the air, and leaving the rest of the combatants at the very least momentarily stunned. Romulus hit the ground painfully, tumbling to a stop, blinking the bleariness from his eyes. Through the intense haze of the flames, he could see figures beginning to emerge, striding confidently through.
From the look of them alone, these were the very cream of the crop when it came to the Venatori. With but a single exception, every last one of them was garbed in blindingly-white robes, accented with silverite armor pieces, and armed with a staff. They marched in lockstep, regimented like a highly-disciplined military force, quite unlike their lower ranks, or any known group of mages in Thedas. If they resembled anything, it was the way the Qunari beresaad movedāconfident, assured, and utterly as one.
At the front of the march was one figure noticeably different from the rest. Tall enough to distinguish himself from the others, he was also clothed head-to-toe in sable, a hood drawn up around his head. His shoulders and chest were protected by a metal so dark a red it was nearly black itself, some kind of bloodstone, maybe, for it lacked the glow of tainted lyrium. Where his troops marched, he prowled, with the kind of feral grace that belonged almost exclusively to predatory cats. The entire left half of his face was covered with some kind of mask, so white it could have been made from porcelain, bone, or pearl, which reflected the scant light with noticeable brilliance.
The uncovered half of his face was quite well-structured, one dark brow set over a darker eye, his skin smooth and unlined, stretched taut over a patrician bone structure. The half of his mouth that could be seen wore a pensive scowl, one that deepened when Fiona and the remaining regulars stepped forward, the first to recover and pick themselves up from the shockwave.
Together, they loosed: two arrows and an impressively-sized fireball flew towards the formation. The Venatori reacted immediately, a couple near the front throwing up barriers to protect the ranks as they continued forward. The man in black, however, met the magical flames with a sneering indifference, raising one hand and summoning his own flames, which flew outwards and made contact with the Grand Enchanterās, engulfing and consuming them before continuing forwards to smite Fiona herself, who fell to the snow with a strangled cry, her unmoving form smoking copiously as flames licked at her hair and clothes, blackening her flesh. There was simply no way sheād survived.
The regulars fell swiftly after, as the Venatori lowered the barriers and volleyed magical projectiles at the group.
In their wake strode a monster, a humanoid form easily outmatching even the likes of Leon in height. He regarded the flames as though they were nothing, even as they licked at his tattered robes and threatened to catch fire. He had not the commander's density, however. His arms and the fingers upon his hands were overly long, and somewhat spindly, each tipped with black pointed nails of several inches. His body was lined with small plates of red lyrium, as though it were fused into his very skin, but that same skin did not feature the same kind of corruption present in the other red templars. No, it was paler, more akin to a corpse or even...
Darkspawn. The thought occurred to Romulus just as the black, hideously twisted dragon screamed again and flew overhead, bending around to land with a cataclysmic shaking of the earth nearby. Its attention, and that of the tainted giant striding ahead, were focused solely on Romulus, on the Herald. He tried to move, but looked down to find a sizable piece of splintered wood from the palisade impaling his lower leg, another smaller one protruding from the right side of his abdomen. His shield was on the ground nearby. He rolled over and grasped for it, though he knew not what use it would be to him at this point.
Someone stepped into Romulusās line of vision, between him and the oncoming forces. The hem of the red cloak and the pattern of metal banding over the personās boots was enough to mark that person as Khari. She rose up onto the front pads of her feet, shifting her center of gravity lower, and he could hear her draw in a ragged breath, letting it hiss out again between her teeth. She lunged into a sprint, sword trailing out to the left of her, and several bright flashes of fire or lightning were hurled for her path, forcing her to dodge each time with bounding leaps and swift trajectory changes. Most struck the ground instead of Khari herself, throwing up clouds of snow and dirt that made it difficult to tell what was going on, but a few sounded like they hit something different.
An enraged yell preceded the heavy whistle of a cleaver swing, but it was cut off by the sound of a blunt impact, a great crash, and Khari was ejected from the swirl of snow and smoke, thrown like a rag doll into the trebuchet itself, where she bounced off one of the thicker wooden beams that comprised it and landed to the side of the siege weapon. She did not stir.
A fireball then flew the other direction, angled upward above most of the human combatants, but eye level with the great black dragon. The fireball struck the creature in the nose and blossomed, but if it was anything other than annoyed, it certainly didn't show it. "Ataashi basra!" Meraad cried in Qunlat, flinging another fireball at the dragon's face. It had the same effect as the last, only serving to irritate the dragon further.
The creature, obviously tired of the Qunari flinging spells at it, strode forward a step, the ground shaking under its weight. Its neck craned and it loosed a deafening roar directed at Meraad, the force of which took his feet from under him and drove him onto his back. The dragon reached forward with its mouth and took Meraad in between his teeth. Meraad cried out in pain, but still fought defiantly. Stone and fire formed around his fist, which he used to assault the dragon's snout repeatedly. "Vashedan ataashi! Nehraa Asala!" He yelled.
The dragon had had enough. He shook his head viciously, causing Meraad's body to ragdoll sickeningly and ceasing his yelling. It snapped its jaws once more before discarding the now lifeless body by flinging it into the distance.
Romulus had staggered to his feet, shield in hand, throughout the efforts of Khari and Meraad to delay the inevitable. He wasn't even thinking anymore, incapable of comprehending what appeared to be his impending demise. It would be a good end, if only he could set off that trebuchet, which still somehow stood intact. He took a pained step towards it, clutching his side.
"Enough!" came a voice, oddly familiar to Romulus. It came from the giant darkspawn abomination, accompanied by a push of his hands that send a wave of magic over him, weak but still able to knock Romulus back onto his rear in his pitiful state. He recognized the tone, from the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, when they made their initial attempt to seal the Breach. There could be no doubt about it: this man, this thing was responsible.
"Pretender," he uttered with contempt. "You and the other toy with forces beyond your ken. No more."
"What is the meaning of this?" Romulus found himself asking, perhaps desperate for some kind of closure to the mystery surrounding his final months, before he died. He rolled and clambered painfully onto his knees. "What are you?"
The darkspawn's face was blank, void of emotion. "Mortals beg for truth they cannot have. It is beyond what you are, what I was. Know me, know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One! The will that is Corypheus!"
Corypheus. The name meant nothing to Romulus. Was it supposed to? Everything in the way the creature presented himself demanded it to be so. Instinctively, Romulus believed him to be insane, the result of red lyrium or the fact that he looked like a darkspawn of all things, and yet he spoke. He spoke with clarity of mind, intellect, purpose. He commanded an army, and they had long since encountered men and women that whispered of him, the Elder One. Romulus placed one foot upon the ground, trying to force himself to stand. The other managed to follow.
The Elder One shook his head. "You will resist. You will always resist. It matters not. You will kneel." It was then that Romulus noticed the object that he carried in his left hand. A metallic orb, heavy in appearance and intricately engraved. Romulus did not recognize its design as anything like what he'd seen Chryseis use. Corypheus lifted the object and it began to glow red from within, as did his opposite hand as he drew power of some kind into himself. He thrust the hand forward.
Instantly the mark upon Romulus's hand lit up, crackling with green energy that rippled all the way up his arm, sending stabbing pains into his chest, and he was soon forced back down to his knees, as the Elder One had predicted. Romulus gritted his teeth, bracing himself with his unmarked arm upon the ground. "I am here for the Anchor," Corypheus declared. "The process of removing it begins now." The pain intensified, until Romulus let out a roar of combined anger and agony.
"It is your fault, Herald. You and the girl interrupted a ritual years in the planning, and instead of dying, you stole its purpose." He drew more energy from the orb, and Romulus could feel his hand, his whole body, being pulled in the darkspawn's direction. His red eyes stared down at him, unfeeling. "I do not know how you survived. But what marks you as touched, what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens."
Behind him, the dragon hissed hungrily, closing in, and eyeing him like so much meat to be consumed. Romulus knew not what force stayed it from devouring him. He did not think it possible for a creature like a dragon to be tamed and commanded by any being. "And you used the Anchor to undo my work. The gall!" He then strode forward, glaring down at Romulus, until he came within arm's reach, at which point he thrust his free hand down, seizing Romulus by the arm and wrenching him up, easily lifting him entirely off the ground. He held him by the arm there, so that the mark on his palm was at eye level.
"I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the Old Gods of the empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. For a thousand years I was confused. No more." Truthfully, Romulus was in no state to comprehend anything he was saying, nor did he think he would understand it even were he in perfect health, but the words seemed to burn into his mind anyway, such was the force with which Corypheus spoke.
He leaned his face in closer, offering Romulus a brutally detailed look at the deformities of his skin, his face, his entire body. "I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world." Tevinter? But... "Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty!"
After one last glance at the mark, Corypheus scowled, and proceeded to hurl Romulus away. He smashed against the stone side of a well, several pieces of the rock falling some distance below. Romulus gasped for breath, and was rewarded with a severe stabbing pain that informed him of broken ribs, damaged organs. He only blearily heard the words Corypheus continued to speak.
"The Anchor is permanent. You have spoiled it with your stumbling. Perhaps the girl's can be removed. If not, so be it. I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation, and god, it requires."
From the angle heād landed at, Romulus was able to see the spot Khari had fallenāspecifically, that she was currently struggling to rise to her feet, and doing so rather quietly, considering. Her expression was twisted into a grimace of pain, and one of her hands held her side, but she lurched to her feet, outside the peripherals of Corypheus or any of his followers, whose attention was focused exclusively on him. The darkspawn advanced several more paces forward even as she stepped to the side, closing in on the trebuchet, ready to fire save that it was yet to be triggered, held in place by several ropes expertly tied.
āAnd you.ā Corypheus sneered down at him even as Khari struggled to pull herself up onto the trebuchetās platform, her sword held almost limply in the hand that wasnāt pressed to her abdomen. āI will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die.ā
āYeah, sure. Good luck with that, you ugly fuck.ā Khari grinned savagely when the attention diverted to her, the expression looking rather macabre considering the fact that she was bleeding from the mouth, crimson smearing from the corner of her lips, visible even under the steel mask, and staining her teeth. With very little fanfare, she raised her sword and chopped through the ropes holding the trebuchet in place, triggering the mechanism and firing the munitions at the side of the mountain. They landed a few seconds later with an ominous boom, low like thunder, and she huffed a sound like laughter, only much more pained.
āThe looks on your facesācompletely worth it.ā
Perhaps predictably, her words were answered with force: several of the Venatori flung spells at her, but she seemed to have been prepared for this, because she jumped off the platform, landing hard in the snow but keeping her feet, whereupon she bolted for Romulus, repeating something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like fuck, fuck, shit damn fuck! She zig-zagged frantically, narrowly avoiding most of the spells, at least until a lightning bolt went off too close to her feet and pitched her forward. She slid for several feet through the snow and scrambled up again, no longer using her hand to hug her abdomen, which now bled freely onto the ground, leaving a red trail in her wake.
āSorry Rom!ā She didnāt specify what the apology was for, but then, the rough way she grabbed his collar with her now-free hand might have had something to do with it. The projectiles had stopped as their enemies scrambled to get free of the impending avalanche, and Khari took the opportunity to drag him behind her, more or less, as she dove into the well heād come to a stop beside.
For a moment, they were weightless, and then they plunged into the dark below.