Khari shifted her weight slightly, careful not to disturb the branch in which she was crouched. It was still cold out, but thankfully the cloak was no longer strictly necessary, which was fortunate since sheâd discarded it a week agoâred was too bright a color in the daytime. She scratched at the drab wool scarf covering her head and resisted the urge to sigh.
This was the problem with ambushes, really. They were boring.
It was, incidentally, the same problem sheâd always had with hunting. Traps and snares, fine, but stalking a deer through the woods for five hours? So tedious sheâd almost rather actually be in pain, just for something to care about. Fortunately, this one probably wouldnât last much longer.
From her position, she could see a fair way down the path. Theyâd left small signs of their presence intentionally, to lure the Venatori this way; better than knowing they were being followed but not exactly having the locations of their stalkers. It was basically set a trap or fall into one, and the choice had been obvious, in those terms.
The Hinterlands were easier to hide in, at least. Not as much gradation in the landscape, but a great deal more trees, which was comfortable for Khari, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Peering between a couple of the other branches on her arbor, she caught sight of the white uniform of the Venatori they were after. They blended much worse out here than they had in the snow, certainly, but unlike she and Rom, hadnât bothered adjusting much for this fact. She squinted, counting heads, then nodded to herself, glancing down and across the trail to where Rom was hidden, lower to the ground but concealed in brush and scrub, at least from the angle of their pursuersâ approach.
She raised five fingers, waiting for confirmation that heâd received the sign before adjusting herself, sinking further backwards into the boughs of the tree. As long as she was still, she wouldnât be seenâthat much, she could judge from experience. Of course, the moment she moved, all bets were off, but that was why she was the distraction and he would do the flanking.
It took another two minutes for the bastards to get into the position she wanted. They were being cautious, perhaps understandably. A month of missing patrols and looted corpses was probably enough for them to figure out that the responsible party or parties were dangerous reckoning. Thankfully, she was still pretty sure they didnât know Rom was involvedâthe place would have been damn near swarming if they did. Sheâd done most of the attacking, too, but thankfully they were both in better shape now than they had been after Haven.
After entirely too much waiting, the Venatori were finally where she wanted them, so Khari fixed the metal mask to her face and ran to the end of the branch, jumping off and landing directly in their midst, hacking one down as she fell. The first to react threw a fireball at her, just catching the end of the scarf, and she pulled it off and discarded it before it burned her, swinging Intercessor around to knock the knife out of the hand of the second to get his bearings. Snarling, she lunged for the mage after, impaling him clean through the chest and swinging him round, still on the blade, only to fling him off in the general direction of one of his compatriots.
âYou canât tease me like a fightâs coming and then not deliver!â She twisted out of the way of another hit, knocking a woman with an axe to the ground when she staggered from the missed blow.
The man disarmed of his knife turned to retrieve it, but his head only found the plated edge of a round shield; a sharp crack accompanied the shattering of his cheekbone as he was spun around, and Rom lunged in, the shield hand grabbing the top of the man's head and pulling back. His blade slid across the throat, spraying crimson forward as the dying Venatori stilled.
The woman knocked down by Khari rolled swiftly back to her feet and rushed forward for Rom this time, raising her two-handed weapon high over her head. Rom turned swiftly, taking the Venatori corpse with him, the blood spraying the axewoman straight in the face. She charged forward anyway, swinging the blade down, and Rom ducked away from his human shield, which was soon cleaved from the shoulder all the way through the ribcage.
Rom shoved the body to the side, and it pulled the axe with it before the woman could withdraw it. Thrown off balance, she was tugged to her left, while Rom leapt around the side of the falling body, making clean downwards plunge of his blade into the neck, piercing vitals and causing the two bodies to fall to the ground in near unison.
Behind them, the last was getting to his feet from under the body of the impaled mage, but no sooner had he reached his feet than a bolt from Rom's crossbow pierced through his breastplate and struck his heart. He stood still for a moment, before collapsing in a heap. Nodding to Khari, Rom immediately began loading another bolt.
From out of the trees some thirty yards away came a horse, unarmored and carrying a spear-wielding Venatori rider. He pulled a horn from his belt and blew, briefly but loudly, before kicking his heels into his horse and charging right at them, spear leveled towards Rom.
A horse! Now they were in business.
There was the annoying matter of its rider, but Khari firmly believed that where there was a will, there was a way. All she had to do was make the way.
She peeled off to the side a bit, trusting Rom to be able to deal with the incoming spear, and waited, bouncing anxiously on her toes, drawing the short knife sheâd looted from a Venatori soldier weeks ago and replacing Intercessor at her back. The riderâs charge carried him past her, and that was when she moved in, bounding into a sprint that took her perpendicular, timing it so that she reached the horse and rider just past the effective angle of the spear. With a running jump, she hurled herself onto the animalâs back, grabbing the rear of the saddle to haul her front half over its haunches.
The ride was predictably bumpy, but she knew what she was doing, and rather than trying to fight the rider off or something like that, she reached down with the knife, slicing through the girth strap of the saddle itself. If this fool had been a chevalier, heâd have been able to keep his seat with no problems, of course, but he wasnât, and one hard shove from her sent him, saddle and all, careening off the side of the horse, and enabling her to swing one leg over and pull herself up to proper riding position using the animalâs mane.
Once she was settled, she wheeled the creature back around and urged it into a canter. If that horn meant what she was pretty sure it did, they were going to need to get out of hereâand fast.
Rom was rising from a roll after she turned around, returning his crossbow to his back, and stalking towards the downed Venatori rider, who'd broken his leg quite severely in the fall. He crawled on his back towards his spear, but his progress was slow, and he seemed preoccupied with Rom's visage. Even with the now filled-in beard, he recognized him.
"You..." Rom's face was set in stone, and he kicked the horseman in the chin viciously, snapping his head back and leaving him writhing on the ground for but a moment before the short sword plunged down into his chest.
A sheath of three light javelins had fallen from the man's back; Rom scooped them up on his way over to Khari, tossing them up to her as she neared, obviously expecting them to come in handy. That done, he grabbed her offered hand and pulled himself up onto the back of the horse, drawing another crossbow bolt and clamping down on it between his teeth.
Without a saddle to fasten the javelin sheath to, Khari had to do some improvising, and wound up just tying the thing to her belt. Theyâd be easy enough to reach there, anyway. âWhatever you do, donât fall off.â Sheâd seen him ride before; while heâd obviously done so more than once, it hadnât been much more than once, by her estimation, and this was going to be a lot trickier without the saddle for stability.
Urging the horse to faster motion, Khari wove them through the trees, trying to avoid taking a direct path, because that would be a lot easier to follow for horses not burdened with two riders instead of just one. The forest would serve them well, though, because it would whittle down any group of cavalry in pursuit, forcing them to break formation to navigate.
Khari chanced a look over her shoulder and swore under her breath. Four of them had already started chasing. They must have been nearby to begin with. Spurring the horse into full gallop, she veered left, into a more densely-wooded area. The animal beneath them almost didnât want to go, but it didnât balk in the end, and she steered as well as she knew how, sliding them through gaps in the trees with precision. The blunted thudding of the horseâs hooves was steady over the forest floor, and she angled them further into it, hoping to lose the tail before they closed to dangerous distance.
Rom hung on tightly with his left hand around Khari's midsection, sparing the right for his crossbow. Turning he held out the weapon and aimed, though riding so quickly made such a thing very difficult, especially from his position just trying to hang on in the back. Two of the Venatori behind them were archers, another wielding more javelins over his head, and the last carried a spear, charging the fastest of them, trying to get up on their flanks. Rom prioritized the archers, loosing the first bolt, but missing by a hair, the Venatori ducking just under it. Rom uttered a muffled curse under his breath.
He turned back, taking his hand away from Khari for a moment to pull the string back again, though he had no sooner done this than he almost fell, and he latched back on to Khari. Chancing a look back, he saw the two archers, much closer than they'd previously been, lining up their own shots. Rom turned back and braced; one arrow whistled over their heads, the other thudded right into the shield on his back. Swiftly he dropped the bolt from his mouth into his hand, and reloaded. He turned again and loosed, catching the closer of the archers in the chest. She went limp and fell from her horse, which careened off to the side without its rider to direct.
Next the javelin-thrower came in too close behind them, and Rom was left with no time to counter. "Down!" He pushed down hard on Khari's shoulder, both of them ducking as low as they could, and the javelin whooshed through the air just over them, splitting into the trunk of a tree on the far side. Meanwhile, the spear-rider was coming up on their left, gaining ground swiftly.
Moving the reins into one hand, Khari drew out one of the javelins with the other, shifting her grip until she was sure she had it the way it needed to go. She was better with swords, honestly, but sheâd practiced this enough times that she knew when push came to shove she could do it. Nudging the horse sharply to the right, she got them just out of range of the spearmanâs first attempt to stab, and while he overcompensated and then tried to recover, she half-turned herself and hurled the javelin.
It struck him in the shoulder, far from fatal on its own, but enough to knock him from the horse, considering his imbalance. Another horn sounded, this one from almost directly in front of them, and Khari grit her teeth. If they went further into the forest, theyâd be intercepted for sure, and she had no idea how many friends these fools had. Probably a decent number, and there was no way theyâd give up, now that at least some of them had seen, and presumably recognized, Rom.
âWe have to leave the forest!â Fair warning, though heâd probably already figured out as much. This would be much, much harder out in the open on the plains, but if she could find a rock formation or a hill to lose them behind, there was still a possibility they got out of this unscathed. Theyâd been through far too much to die like this, by her reckoning.
Adjusting their course, Khari guided the horse out of the treeline and onto the plains, running perpendicular to the hills whenever possibleâgoing up or down would make them easier targets, for different reasons. She drew the second javelin out as well, but for the moment simply held it in her free hand, leaning further over the horseâs neck in an attempt to urge every bit of speed out of it that she could.
Another javelin came in for them, skimming off the face of Rom's shield. He snapped another bolt into place, turning and firing without hesitation. The projectile cracked straight through the helm and skull of the rider, and in his death he tugged hard on the horse's reins, steering the beast sideways until it tangled right up into the horse of the second archer. Both animals went to the ground, the horses screaming as they kicked up mounds of dirt, and the riders were tossed to break among the rocks at high speeds.
They had only a moment of freedom, before more horses than before came charging into view, again with a wide assortment of weaponry, this time led by an obvious mage wielding a long black staff. He hurled a massive fireball in their direction, the spell sailing over their heads but exploding against a boulder in front of them, flaring outwards with an intense heat that Khari had to swerve to avoid. Rom sent a bolt in the mage's direction, but missed and hit a horse behind the robed man. The beast wasn't killed outright, but immediately had to slow, eliminating the rider from the chase.
"We can't take this many," he warned. There were at least twice the number of Venatori on their heels now as before, and with very little cover as well.
Much as she hated to admit it, he was obviously right. They were rapidly running out of options, and the horse beneath them was tiring of the frantic pace at which she was pushing it to run. She had to risk a slope, and she chose the downhill, giving them breakneck momentum but also making them a great deal easier to aim at. Another fireball careened by, close enough that Khari felt uncomfortable heat on her left side. It slammed into the ground some distance ahead, throwing up a spray of dirt and flaming debris that she charged them right through. If they could make it a bit farther, there were more rock formations and cover ahead.
Taking the shortest possible route there, Khari guided the horse into a jump over a fallen log, up another small slope, and right through a shallow river crossing, water splashing upwards and saturating their legs up to the knees. There was an outcropping just ahead that they might be able to get behindâ
Without warning, the horse lurched violently beneath them, simultaneously with an unmistakable wet thudâsomeone had shot it. It stumbled on its next step, and Khari threw herself, and consequently Rom who was still holding onto her midsection, to the side, so they didnât end up under the horse. She hit the ground hard enough to see stars, thrown from Româs hold and skidding several more feet until her back met a bare tree stump.
Her still-tender ribcage flared with pain, and Khari gasped, forcing herself to her feet as soon as she could, drawing Intercessor again, her eyes seeking her friend.
Rom was dragging himself out of the river bank when Khari located him, dripping wet from the chest down. A saber-wielding Venatori rider splashed through the river behind him, slashing down swiftly. Rom managed to get his shield in hand just in time to deflect the blow, but he stumbled and fell again as the horse went past. Several arrows came their way, near misses. The horse they'd been riding had fallen in the river, and it no longer moved. There was no hope of running anymore, the amount of cover was too small, and there were too many projectiles coming for them.
From behind Khari, however, projectiles began to return towards the Venatori in greater numbers, arrows fletched with white feathers whistling into man and horse alike. From the rocks emerged a number of archers on foot, their clothing bearing the sunburst brand of the Chantry on dark red fields, though they clearly weren't templars, judging from the utter lack of heavy armor.
The Venatori were caught by surprise and thrown into disarray, their attacks on Khari and Rom faltering as they tried to address the new foe. The mage among them tried to throw up a barrier, but he was struck in the chest by a bolt of lightning from the other side. The mage among the supposed Chantry forces was a woman with bright orange hair, with crossed swords on her back in addition to the spells she wielded from her fingertips. The lightning arced from cavalryman to cavalryman several times, throwing them from their horses in spasms and fits, into the river. The arrows launched against them were relentless, and eventually the Venatori were forced to scatter and flee, the surviving members vanishing behind cover as quickly as they could.
"It's him!" one of their saviors called. "The Herald of Andraste lives!"
The redheaded woman dropped down lightly from atop a large rock, jogging forward past Khari to Rom's side. "I knew he lived. I knew it!" There was an intense satisfaction in the delivery of her words. "Are you injured, Your Worship?"
She helped Rom to his feet, and though he looked a bit bewildered at the title thrown upon him, he shook his head. "I'm alright. How did..."
"We've been battling Venatori hunting parties for weeks now. They range across the Hinterlands, but they're separated from the main force. I suspected they were looking for something most valuable. I was right." Suddenly, she took a knee before him, unable to keep the smile from her face. "It has been my honor to serve you, blood of Andraste."
Rom seemed hardly to comprehend the end of that, instead watching several of the others take a reverent kneeling position as well. One young man, after bowing deeply to him, came to Khari's side, acknowledging her at last. "Do you require assistance, friend?"
âUhhâŠâ Khari scrunched her face slightly, pulling her brows down and wrinkling her nose. âIâm okay, thanks.â She replaced Intercessor, pulling out the broken javelin from the sheath still tied to her belt and discarding it in favor of the one she still held, which had somehow remained intact despite her fall. She had no idea what the hell everyone was on about, exactly, but they didnât seem to be hostileâpretty much the opposite, really. At least where Rom was concerned.
âSo, Rom.â She moved towards him, coming to a stop a somewhat awkward distance away, mostly because she wasnât really sure what to do here. âWho are these people?â They certainly werenât Inquisition, and they werenât Templars or Seekers either, as far as she could tell.
Rom seemed to struggle to properly describe the group that had saved them, but the leader was quick to step in, rising from her kneeling position and smiling cordially at Khari. "We are friends of the Inquisition, and more specifically to the chosen Herald of Andraste. He sealed our loyalty with a demonstration of his command over the rifts some time ago. My name is Anais, and I speak for the Herald's Disciples." When Rom did not refute any of that, it seemed that all of it was indeed truth.
She turned to her troops, if they could be called that. "See to the bodies, quickly." They set about removing the arms and salvageable pieces of armor from the Venatori, as well as any other useful supplies. Anais smiled again, her gaze shifting between Rom and Khari. "This area is not safe. We should return to Winterwatch immediately. There is much to discuss." She could not contain the excitement from seeping into her words as she looked at Rom, with an obvious expression of what could only be adoration. "And there is someone who would very much like to speak with you."
Khari might have pointed out several things here, like that there were two Heralds or something, but it seemed like a detail currently not worth bothering with. These people were making her want to remain at least five feet from the nearest one at all times, but she couldnât quite pin down why, except that they seemed far more reverent than one person should ever be towards another, in her estimation. Still, if Rom was like their hero or something, she figured it might be minor, as far as overreactions went, and she chose to ignore her lingering unease, for now.
She looked to Rom himself and shrugged. Food and shelter would be pretty damn welcome, honestly, and at this point sheâd probably take it from anyone who wasnât a Venatori or a darkspawn.
Rom seemed to be of a similar mind, and he nodded, clearly a bit unsure why the group was acting this way as well. Anais nodded in return. "Come. We will prepare a feast for your return to the world of the living."
This was the problem with ambushes, really. They were boring.
It was, incidentally, the same problem sheâd always had with hunting. Traps and snares, fine, but stalking a deer through the woods for five hours? So tedious sheâd almost rather actually be in pain, just for something to care about. Fortunately, this one probably wouldnât last much longer.
From her position, she could see a fair way down the path. Theyâd left small signs of their presence intentionally, to lure the Venatori this way; better than knowing they were being followed but not exactly having the locations of their stalkers. It was basically set a trap or fall into one, and the choice had been obvious, in those terms.
The Hinterlands were easier to hide in, at least. Not as much gradation in the landscape, but a great deal more trees, which was comfortable for Khari, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Peering between a couple of the other branches on her arbor, she caught sight of the white uniform of the Venatori they were after. They blended much worse out here than they had in the snow, certainly, but unlike she and Rom, hadnât bothered adjusting much for this fact. She squinted, counting heads, then nodded to herself, glancing down and across the trail to where Rom was hidden, lower to the ground but concealed in brush and scrub, at least from the angle of their pursuersâ approach.
She raised five fingers, waiting for confirmation that heâd received the sign before adjusting herself, sinking further backwards into the boughs of the tree. As long as she was still, she wouldnât be seenâthat much, she could judge from experience. Of course, the moment she moved, all bets were off, but that was why she was the distraction and he would do the flanking.
It took another two minutes for the bastards to get into the position she wanted. They were being cautious, perhaps understandably. A month of missing patrols and looted corpses was probably enough for them to figure out that the responsible party or parties were dangerous reckoning. Thankfully, she was still pretty sure they didnât know Rom was involvedâthe place would have been damn near swarming if they did. Sheâd done most of the attacking, too, but thankfully they were both in better shape now than they had been after Haven.
After entirely too much waiting, the Venatori were finally where she wanted them, so Khari fixed the metal mask to her face and ran to the end of the branch, jumping off and landing directly in their midst, hacking one down as she fell. The first to react threw a fireball at her, just catching the end of the scarf, and she pulled it off and discarded it before it burned her, swinging Intercessor around to knock the knife out of the hand of the second to get his bearings. Snarling, she lunged for the mage after, impaling him clean through the chest and swinging him round, still on the blade, only to fling him off in the general direction of one of his compatriots.
âYou canât tease me like a fightâs coming and then not deliver!â She twisted out of the way of another hit, knocking a woman with an axe to the ground when she staggered from the missed blow.
The man disarmed of his knife turned to retrieve it, but his head only found the plated edge of a round shield; a sharp crack accompanied the shattering of his cheekbone as he was spun around, and Rom lunged in, the shield hand grabbing the top of the man's head and pulling back. His blade slid across the throat, spraying crimson forward as the dying Venatori stilled.
The woman knocked down by Khari rolled swiftly back to her feet and rushed forward for Rom this time, raising her two-handed weapon high over her head. Rom turned swiftly, taking the Venatori corpse with him, the blood spraying the axewoman straight in the face. She charged forward anyway, swinging the blade down, and Rom ducked away from his human shield, which was soon cleaved from the shoulder all the way through the ribcage.
Rom shoved the body to the side, and it pulled the axe with it before the woman could withdraw it. Thrown off balance, she was tugged to her left, while Rom leapt around the side of the falling body, making clean downwards plunge of his blade into the neck, piercing vitals and causing the two bodies to fall to the ground in near unison.
Behind them, the last was getting to his feet from under the body of the impaled mage, but no sooner had he reached his feet than a bolt from Rom's crossbow pierced through his breastplate and struck his heart. He stood still for a moment, before collapsing in a heap. Nodding to Khari, Rom immediately began loading another bolt.
From out of the trees some thirty yards away came a horse, unarmored and carrying a spear-wielding Venatori rider. He pulled a horn from his belt and blew, briefly but loudly, before kicking his heels into his horse and charging right at them, spear leveled towards Rom.
A horse! Now they were in business.
There was the annoying matter of its rider, but Khari firmly believed that where there was a will, there was a way. All she had to do was make the way.
She peeled off to the side a bit, trusting Rom to be able to deal with the incoming spear, and waited, bouncing anxiously on her toes, drawing the short knife sheâd looted from a Venatori soldier weeks ago and replacing Intercessor at her back. The riderâs charge carried him past her, and that was when she moved in, bounding into a sprint that took her perpendicular, timing it so that she reached the horse and rider just past the effective angle of the spear. With a running jump, she hurled herself onto the animalâs back, grabbing the rear of the saddle to haul her front half over its haunches.
The ride was predictably bumpy, but she knew what she was doing, and rather than trying to fight the rider off or something like that, she reached down with the knife, slicing through the girth strap of the saddle itself. If this fool had been a chevalier, heâd have been able to keep his seat with no problems, of course, but he wasnât, and one hard shove from her sent him, saddle and all, careening off the side of the horse, and enabling her to swing one leg over and pull herself up to proper riding position using the animalâs mane.
Once she was settled, she wheeled the creature back around and urged it into a canter. If that horn meant what she was pretty sure it did, they were going to need to get out of hereâand fast.
Rom was rising from a roll after she turned around, returning his crossbow to his back, and stalking towards the downed Venatori rider, who'd broken his leg quite severely in the fall. He crawled on his back towards his spear, but his progress was slow, and he seemed preoccupied with Rom's visage. Even with the now filled-in beard, he recognized him.
"You..." Rom's face was set in stone, and he kicked the horseman in the chin viciously, snapping his head back and leaving him writhing on the ground for but a moment before the short sword plunged down into his chest.
A sheath of three light javelins had fallen from the man's back; Rom scooped them up on his way over to Khari, tossing them up to her as she neared, obviously expecting them to come in handy. That done, he grabbed her offered hand and pulled himself up onto the back of the horse, drawing another crossbow bolt and clamping down on it between his teeth.
Without a saddle to fasten the javelin sheath to, Khari had to do some improvising, and wound up just tying the thing to her belt. Theyâd be easy enough to reach there, anyway. âWhatever you do, donât fall off.â Sheâd seen him ride before; while heâd obviously done so more than once, it hadnât been much more than once, by her estimation, and this was going to be a lot trickier without the saddle for stability.
Urging the horse to faster motion, Khari wove them through the trees, trying to avoid taking a direct path, because that would be a lot easier to follow for horses not burdened with two riders instead of just one. The forest would serve them well, though, because it would whittle down any group of cavalry in pursuit, forcing them to break formation to navigate.
Khari chanced a look over her shoulder and swore under her breath. Four of them had already started chasing. They must have been nearby to begin with. Spurring the horse into full gallop, she veered left, into a more densely-wooded area. The animal beneath them almost didnât want to go, but it didnât balk in the end, and she steered as well as she knew how, sliding them through gaps in the trees with precision. The blunted thudding of the horseâs hooves was steady over the forest floor, and she angled them further into it, hoping to lose the tail before they closed to dangerous distance.
Rom hung on tightly with his left hand around Khari's midsection, sparing the right for his crossbow. Turning he held out the weapon and aimed, though riding so quickly made such a thing very difficult, especially from his position just trying to hang on in the back. Two of the Venatori behind them were archers, another wielding more javelins over his head, and the last carried a spear, charging the fastest of them, trying to get up on their flanks. Rom prioritized the archers, loosing the first bolt, but missing by a hair, the Venatori ducking just under it. Rom uttered a muffled curse under his breath.
He turned back, taking his hand away from Khari for a moment to pull the string back again, though he had no sooner done this than he almost fell, and he latched back on to Khari. Chancing a look back, he saw the two archers, much closer than they'd previously been, lining up their own shots. Rom turned back and braced; one arrow whistled over their heads, the other thudded right into the shield on his back. Swiftly he dropped the bolt from his mouth into his hand, and reloaded. He turned again and loosed, catching the closer of the archers in the chest. She went limp and fell from her horse, which careened off to the side without its rider to direct.
Next the javelin-thrower came in too close behind them, and Rom was left with no time to counter. "Down!" He pushed down hard on Khari's shoulder, both of them ducking as low as they could, and the javelin whooshed through the air just over them, splitting into the trunk of a tree on the far side. Meanwhile, the spear-rider was coming up on their left, gaining ground swiftly.
Moving the reins into one hand, Khari drew out one of the javelins with the other, shifting her grip until she was sure she had it the way it needed to go. She was better with swords, honestly, but sheâd practiced this enough times that she knew when push came to shove she could do it. Nudging the horse sharply to the right, she got them just out of range of the spearmanâs first attempt to stab, and while he overcompensated and then tried to recover, she half-turned herself and hurled the javelin.
It struck him in the shoulder, far from fatal on its own, but enough to knock him from the horse, considering his imbalance. Another horn sounded, this one from almost directly in front of them, and Khari grit her teeth. If they went further into the forest, theyâd be intercepted for sure, and she had no idea how many friends these fools had. Probably a decent number, and there was no way theyâd give up, now that at least some of them had seen, and presumably recognized, Rom.
âWe have to leave the forest!â Fair warning, though heâd probably already figured out as much. This would be much, much harder out in the open on the plains, but if she could find a rock formation or a hill to lose them behind, there was still a possibility they got out of this unscathed. Theyâd been through far too much to die like this, by her reckoning.
Adjusting their course, Khari guided the horse out of the treeline and onto the plains, running perpendicular to the hills whenever possibleâgoing up or down would make them easier targets, for different reasons. She drew the second javelin out as well, but for the moment simply held it in her free hand, leaning further over the horseâs neck in an attempt to urge every bit of speed out of it that she could.
Another javelin came in for them, skimming off the face of Rom's shield. He snapped another bolt into place, turning and firing without hesitation. The projectile cracked straight through the helm and skull of the rider, and in his death he tugged hard on the horse's reins, steering the beast sideways until it tangled right up into the horse of the second archer. Both animals went to the ground, the horses screaming as they kicked up mounds of dirt, and the riders were tossed to break among the rocks at high speeds.
They had only a moment of freedom, before more horses than before came charging into view, again with a wide assortment of weaponry, this time led by an obvious mage wielding a long black staff. He hurled a massive fireball in their direction, the spell sailing over their heads but exploding against a boulder in front of them, flaring outwards with an intense heat that Khari had to swerve to avoid. Rom sent a bolt in the mage's direction, but missed and hit a horse behind the robed man. The beast wasn't killed outright, but immediately had to slow, eliminating the rider from the chase.
"We can't take this many," he warned. There were at least twice the number of Venatori on their heels now as before, and with very little cover as well.
Much as she hated to admit it, he was obviously right. They were rapidly running out of options, and the horse beneath them was tiring of the frantic pace at which she was pushing it to run. She had to risk a slope, and she chose the downhill, giving them breakneck momentum but also making them a great deal easier to aim at. Another fireball careened by, close enough that Khari felt uncomfortable heat on her left side. It slammed into the ground some distance ahead, throwing up a spray of dirt and flaming debris that she charged them right through. If they could make it a bit farther, there were more rock formations and cover ahead.
Taking the shortest possible route there, Khari guided the horse into a jump over a fallen log, up another small slope, and right through a shallow river crossing, water splashing upwards and saturating their legs up to the knees. There was an outcropping just ahead that they might be able to get behindâ
Without warning, the horse lurched violently beneath them, simultaneously with an unmistakable wet thudâsomeone had shot it. It stumbled on its next step, and Khari threw herself, and consequently Rom who was still holding onto her midsection, to the side, so they didnât end up under the horse. She hit the ground hard enough to see stars, thrown from Româs hold and skidding several more feet until her back met a bare tree stump.
Her still-tender ribcage flared with pain, and Khari gasped, forcing herself to her feet as soon as she could, drawing Intercessor again, her eyes seeking her friend.
Rom was dragging himself out of the river bank when Khari located him, dripping wet from the chest down. A saber-wielding Venatori rider splashed through the river behind him, slashing down swiftly. Rom managed to get his shield in hand just in time to deflect the blow, but he stumbled and fell again as the horse went past. Several arrows came their way, near misses. The horse they'd been riding had fallen in the river, and it no longer moved. There was no hope of running anymore, the amount of cover was too small, and there were too many projectiles coming for them.
From behind Khari, however, projectiles began to return towards the Venatori in greater numbers, arrows fletched with white feathers whistling into man and horse alike. From the rocks emerged a number of archers on foot, their clothing bearing the sunburst brand of the Chantry on dark red fields, though they clearly weren't templars, judging from the utter lack of heavy armor.
The Venatori were caught by surprise and thrown into disarray, their attacks on Khari and Rom faltering as they tried to address the new foe. The mage among them tried to throw up a barrier, but he was struck in the chest by a bolt of lightning from the other side. The mage among the supposed Chantry forces was a woman with bright orange hair, with crossed swords on her back in addition to the spells she wielded from her fingertips. The lightning arced from cavalryman to cavalryman several times, throwing them from their horses in spasms and fits, into the river. The arrows launched against them were relentless, and eventually the Venatori were forced to scatter and flee, the surviving members vanishing behind cover as quickly as they could.
"It's him!" one of their saviors called. "The Herald of Andraste lives!"
The redheaded woman dropped down lightly from atop a large rock, jogging forward past Khari to Rom's side. "I knew he lived. I knew it!" There was an intense satisfaction in the delivery of her words. "Are you injured, Your Worship?"
She helped Rom to his feet, and though he looked a bit bewildered at the title thrown upon him, he shook his head. "I'm alright. How did..."
"We've been battling Venatori hunting parties for weeks now. They range across the Hinterlands, but they're separated from the main force. I suspected they were looking for something most valuable. I was right." Suddenly, she took a knee before him, unable to keep the smile from her face. "It has been my honor to serve you, blood of Andraste."
Rom seemed hardly to comprehend the end of that, instead watching several of the others take a reverent kneeling position as well. One young man, after bowing deeply to him, came to Khari's side, acknowledging her at last. "Do you require assistance, friend?"
âUhhâŠâ Khari scrunched her face slightly, pulling her brows down and wrinkling her nose. âIâm okay, thanks.â She replaced Intercessor, pulling out the broken javelin from the sheath still tied to her belt and discarding it in favor of the one she still held, which had somehow remained intact despite her fall. She had no idea what the hell everyone was on about, exactly, but they didnât seem to be hostileâpretty much the opposite, really. At least where Rom was concerned.
âSo, Rom.â She moved towards him, coming to a stop a somewhat awkward distance away, mostly because she wasnât really sure what to do here. âWho are these people?â They certainly werenât Inquisition, and they werenât Templars or Seekers either, as far as she could tell.
Rom seemed to struggle to properly describe the group that had saved them, but the leader was quick to step in, rising from her kneeling position and smiling cordially at Khari. "We are friends of the Inquisition, and more specifically to the chosen Herald of Andraste. He sealed our loyalty with a demonstration of his command over the rifts some time ago. My name is Anais, and I speak for the Herald's Disciples." When Rom did not refute any of that, it seemed that all of it was indeed truth.
She turned to her troops, if they could be called that. "See to the bodies, quickly." They set about removing the arms and salvageable pieces of armor from the Venatori, as well as any other useful supplies. Anais smiled again, her gaze shifting between Rom and Khari. "This area is not safe. We should return to Winterwatch immediately. There is much to discuss." She could not contain the excitement from seeping into her words as she looked at Rom, with an obvious expression of what could only be adoration. "And there is someone who would very much like to speak with you."
Khari might have pointed out several things here, like that there were two Heralds or something, but it seemed like a detail currently not worth bothering with. These people were making her want to remain at least five feet from the nearest one at all times, but she couldnât quite pin down why, except that they seemed far more reverent than one person should ever be towards another, in her estimation. Still, if Rom was like their hero or something, she figured it might be minor, as far as overreactions went, and she chose to ignore her lingering unease, for now.
She looked to Rom himself and shrugged. Food and shelter would be pretty damn welcome, honestly, and at this point sheâd probably take it from anyone who wasnât a Venatori or a darkspawn.
Rom seemed to be of a similar mind, and he nodded, clearly a bit unsure why the group was acting this way as well. Anais nodded in return. "Come. We will prepare a feast for your return to the world of the living."