Cyrus was not used to the idea that he might not be a match for a single, ordinary member of the Venatori.
He'd lived the vast majority of his life with power at his fingertips. Too much, in many instances. Control of the power had been slower. But this, a situation where he could fight with nothing but his physical body and a puny little knife made of mundane metal, sick as a dog and twice as exhausted as he'd be if he'd run miles to get here...
He threw himself to the side to avoid the bladed end of the woman's staff, whistling heavily through the air. Pushing himself out of the roll might have been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do, but he managed it, staggering to the side and pushing back the instinct to run. Every wounded animal had one, and he was no different.
But he bared his teeth instead, and lunged forward with the pathetic amount of strength left in his body, overwhelming his opponent likely more by surprise than skill. She, like most mages, wasn't used to fighting at close quarters, and he brought them both to the ground, pinning her by the neck with his right arm. Stellulam's knife found her throat and punched through the tender flesh that covered it. The warmth of blood on his free hand was a much more visceral sensation than he usually felt in battle, the way his Fade-swords cauterized and burned clean through. He knew this sensation, though. Remembered.
Pushing himself to his feet with a grunt, he sought Leta. There was a thick cloud of smoke—Entropic Cloud. Her doing, perhaps. When she'd been pretending to be Livia who knew little, she'd confessed those spells were easiest. Subtle workings on the mind. A grain of truth in a heap of lies.
Vesryn was right in the middle of the cloud, but so were all of the Venatori that had attempted to swarm him, and he seemed to be faring better than the rest. The fight looked to be almost in a slowed state of time, all of the combatants suddenly exhausted or something. Imprecise strikes and even weaker blocks. But through all of that the elf remained standing, cutting down the Venatori that didn't fare as well. As soon as he had a bit of room to move, he pushed forward rather than back, closer to Livia, though he was still forced to engage others in her ranks.
He managed to burst free of the entropic cloud, shaking off its effects, and rushed for the last few of the mages. He cleaved the first's staff in two when he quite pointlessly tried to block with it. The axe carried on through and sliced a fatal wound vertically down his middle.
Asala coughed heavily, and one of her shields flashed to life. It flickered weakly for a moment before she let it disintegrate. It appeared the cloud could even seep through her barriers. Instead, a healing light sprang to her hand which she then quickly put to her face, probably in an attempt to try and purge the ill effects of the cloud. While she breathed in the spell, she stumbled toward the edge and exited the other side, the sudden clarity coming as a shock and causing her to trip forward.
Another Venatori seemed to be waiting for her, his sword drawn back for a strike just as she looked up. The barrier was not fast enough to save her completely, but it did form around the blade and tamper with the trajectory enough so that her shoulder caught the blade instead of her head. She cried out in pain, but she now had his sword entangled in one of her barriers. She bid the barrier to twist harshly, ripping the sword out of his hands and reared back, smashing the barrier-- blade and all-- against the man with enough force to lift him off of his feet and toss him no small distance away.
Asala hissed and another healing spell lit up in her hand, this one pressed against her shoulder.
Even as the cloud of entropy spells began to clear, Cyrus could see that Estella was still in the middle of a rather tense exchange with Leta. Blood ran freely from a wound cut into her side; matching red coated one edge of the blade on the elven woman's staff. She didn't seem to want to kill Stellulam outright, perhaps because she knew quite well that she was fighting one of the bearers of an Anchor, someone who was no doubt more valuable alive.
Or so it seemed. Glancing around, Leta caught on to the fact that her allies were now few. Magic sparked at her fingertips, and she thrust her hand outwards. The air rippled, something slamming into Estella and freezing her on the spot. Dropping the staff, Leta drew a knife from her belt, where it rested beside a small satchel. Stepping smoothly around behind Estella, she gripped her dark hair in one hand and wrenched back, laying the knife against her throat and forcing her several steps back, still paralyzed.
"Not another move!" The blade pressed close, drawing the thinnest of bloody lines against Stellulam's pale throat. "Not one, or she's gone, do you understand?"
Cyrus choked on air. He didn't doubt for a moment that she would do it. It would satisfy her sense of fairness as he remembered it. To take his sibling in exchange for her own. To kill an Inquisitor, even if Corypheus or whoever she served would prefer she remain alive. To make good on a threat the instant the conditions were met. That was what lives like theirs made of people like them.
Vesryn practically growled in place, rolling his shoulders and keeping both hands firmly on his axe. His eyes were locked on Leta, but his feet seemed to be locked to the ground.
"Well, well. Isn't this interesting?" A voice, as oily as it was authoritative, rasped in the quiet. A man emerged from the nearby treeline, several more Venatori stepping out with him. Most of them wore predominantly white, their robes accented with silver, but he was garbed in black, with pieces of red and gold. The mask that covered half his face was a solid, pearl-white. From the descriptions Romulus and Khari had given of the attack on Haven, these were among the most elite of the cult, and the man in black was their leader.
Hands clasped casually behind his back, he advanced, taking in the situation with a sort of facile ease. His face was relaxed, or the visible half of it was, his lips turned into a slight smile. His black eyes were sharp, though, and far too cold for his demeanor to be genuine.
He gestured with his chin, and the elites behind him fanned out, surrounding the group in a circle. They were armed with metal staves to a one, but they did not get too close, leaving at least five feet between themselves and the nearest member of the Inquisition. In Leta's grip, Estella slackened, the paralysis ending but leaving her no better off than she had been.
"Leta, dear, you seem to have miscalculated considerably, don't you think?"
Cyrus swore there was something vaguely familiar about the man, but there were so many other things crowding his mind for attention right now that it hardly mattered. He was here, surrounded by Venatori with only a few friends, if powerful ones, near-useless himself. He had nothing to fight this with, nothing but a knife in his hand and the mind in his head. And for once, he didn't know the answer. The solution did not present itself to him immediately as they so often did, and there simply wasn't time to research and experiment and think through this slowly. He had to act now, or Stellulam was going to die or worse. And the rest of them would surely follow.
He remembered a future that could have been, and desperation seized him. If all he had was a knife and his intellect, he needed to use it. The knife wouldn't save anyone. He'd be able to kill perhaps one Venatori before he was overwhelmed and condemned them all.
Unless...
Rapidly, he raised the knife and laid it against his own neck. “She miscalculated, all right."
Leta sneered at him, her lip curling. "Should have used a higher dose. You want to finish the job for me? I won't spare her just for your death in exchange, if that's what you're thinking."
The man seemed considerably more intrigued by Cyrus's actions, and tilted his head, a strand of black hair falling in front of the mask. "Come now, Leta, don't be naive. Lord Avenarius here is a Magister, or close enough. A Magister's intentions are never so... selfless. What is it she's missed, milord?" The title was given a delicate disdain that usually only other nobles could muster.
The sense of familiarity increased, as did the burning shame in the pit of his stomach, but Cyrus ignored both. This was too important. He rested the flat of the blade against his own neck, ensuring that striking him with a spell would probably kill him, and swallowed. “My notes." He said the words slowly, carefully. “They're in a cipher. If you don't have me, you won't be able to figure it out. If I die, you'll never open another Breach."
That was a bluff. His ciphers were good, no doubt, but he couldn't guarantee they were uncrackable. Fortunately, that man was right: he didn't have to go through with this. Just think his way out of it.
The mention of the papers did the trick; Leta's eyes fell towards the small satchel at her waist, near where she'd drawn the knife. They were there, then, and she probably hadn't bothered to sit down and read them, yet, which meant they should all be in the same place.
Carefully, Cyrus made eye contact with Estella, making sure he had hers, then letting his own fall towards the satchel. He lifted them back up, holding Stellulam's again and hoping, hoping that she understood.
Stellulam's eyes widened just fractionally. She dropped them down and to the side, completely still in Leta's grip. It would seem she'd understood what he was trying to convey, but there was still the matter of the knife at her neck, and the very little room she had to move. Her right hand shifted. She closed her fist once.
"Oh come now, Lord Avenarius. You're not the only clever man to have ever walked Thedas. In fact, I'd take you for quite a stupid one, knowing what I do about you." His words seemed only to have amused the Venatori's leader, whose smile inched a little further up the exposed side of his face. "If that's all you have, we'll be capturing the Lady Inquisitor and killing the rest of you, I should think."
He raised a hand as if to order it done, but at the same moment, Estella's left hand burst into flame; she pressed it into Leta's side, right against the satchel. Simultaneously, the mark on her right crackled, wreathing her in green light. She threw herself forward, but the jump wasn't nearly as well-performed as the one in the Fade, and she wound up falling down about halfway between Leta and Vesryn with a cry of pain.
“Shit." Cyrus did not often use vulgarities, but if any situation called for them, this was it.
The Venatori looked to their leader; Cyrus knew it would be a matter of seconds before they were engulfed in magic too dense to escape. But before he could give the command, the masked man was struck in the side by a bolt of lightning even Cyrus could envy. It chained to Leta and the other cultists nearby with a heavy, crackling rapport. All of them collapsed; almost immediately, the remaining Venatori turned to face whatever threat was oncoming. Cyrus didn't look—it had come from the direction of the eluvian. They'd know what it was soon enough. For now, they had to move.
“Run! Back through the mirror!"
Vesryn moved quickly, his reactions perhaps driven by the superior instinct in his head rather than his own, and he was immediately in motion towards Estella. Carrying his axe in one hand, he reached down with the other, grabbing hold of her arm. "Very sorry about this." He pulled her rather forcefully to her feet, as there was no time to delay. That said, he made every effort to support her once she was up. "We need to move, now."
She seemed to be having some trouble complying, or running outright, but she moved reasonably quickly, following he and Asala back down the path towards the eluvian.
Cyrus hurried after, his body still battered and weary. But at least he didn't have to force any of the Venatori out of the way—Vesryn and Asala were doing a fine job with barriers and more conventional methods. Like boots to the chest. It helped that the cultists were clearly dug in and fighting the intruder.
It didn't take long to make it far enough down the path to identify him. Cyrus knew him on sight—but that didn't explain what he was doing here. Or how he'd managed to follow them. Or why he'd want to. It was... too many questions, for the moment. He could at least be relatively certain that the armor-clad elf was an ally. The way he reflected the Venatori's magical projectiles back at them with pinpoint precision was evidence enough for now. The steady hum of the green longblades in each hand was a familiar sound; the crack when they deflected a Winter's Grasp back at a cluster of the cultists less so.
"Do hurry, please. It would be difficult to keep this up all day. New password's Mythal'enaste."
When they made it to the eluvian, Cyrus glanced at Estella. “If you would, Stellulam?" As soon as she'd given the password, they were through.
They hadn't made it more than three steps forward before their rescuer stepped in behind them, blinking grass-colored eyes at those present. The blades he'd summoned were gone, but there was no mistaking the exotic nature of his appearance. His head was shaved on both sides and beneath, leaving only the top third or so, but that was thick and ink-dark, gathered into a tail on the back of his head. His smile was pleasant as one pleased, but the armor was clearly not for show, however polished the engraved breastplate with its sprawling tree design.
He took a look at Stellulam, pursing his lips. "I'd introduce myself to your friends, but I think that can wait. If I return through your eluvian with you, will I get stabbed?"
Cyrus was too tired to say anything clever in return. “No..." His vision faded, fatigue catching up with him again, and this time it would not be denied. The ground rushed up beneath him, but he didn't even feel the impact.
He'd lived the vast majority of his life with power at his fingertips. Too much, in many instances. Control of the power had been slower. But this, a situation where he could fight with nothing but his physical body and a puny little knife made of mundane metal, sick as a dog and twice as exhausted as he'd be if he'd run miles to get here...
He threw himself to the side to avoid the bladed end of the woman's staff, whistling heavily through the air. Pushing himself out of the roll might have been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do, but he managed it, staggering to the side and pushing back the instinct to run. Every wounded animal had one, and he was no different.
But he bared his teeth instead, and lunged forward with the pathetic amount of strength left in his body, overwhelming his opponent likely more by surprise than skill. She, like most mages, wasn't used to fighting at close quarters, and he brought them both to the ground, pinning her by the neck with his right arm. Stellulam's knife found her throat and punched through the tender flesh that covered it. The warmth of blood on his free hand was a much more visceral sensation than he usually felt in battle, the way his Fade-swords cauterized and burned clean through. He knew this sensation, though. Remembered.
Pushing himself to his feet with a grunt, he sought Leta. There was a thick cloud of smoke—Entropic Cloud. Her doing, perhaps. When she'd been pretending to be Livia who knew little, she'd confessed those spells were easiest. Subtle workings on the mind. A grain of truth in a heap of lies.
Vesryn was right in the middle of the cloud, but so were all of the Venatori that had attempted to swarm him, and he seemed to be faring better than the rest. The fight looked to be almost in a slowed state of time, all of the combatants suddenly exhausted or something. Imprecise strikes and even weaker blocks. But through all of that the elf remained standing, cutting down the Venatori that didn't fare as well. As soon as he had a bit of room to move, he pushed forward rather than back, closer to Livia, though he was still forced to engage others in her ranks.
He managed to burst free of the entropic cloud, shaking off its effects, and rushed for the last few of the mages. He cleaved the first's staff in two when he quite pointlessly tried to block with it. The axe carried on through and sliced a fatal wound vertically down his middle.
Asala coughed heavily, and one of her shields flashed to life. It flickered weakly for a moment before she let it disintegrate. It appeared the cloud could even seep through her barriers. Instead, a healing light sprang to her hand which she then quickly put to her face, probably in an attempt to try and purge the ill effects of the cloud. While she breathed in the spell, she stumbled toward the edge and exited the other side, the sudden clarity coming as a shock and causing her to trip forward.
Another Venatori seemed to be waiting for her, his sword drawn back for a strike just as she looked up. The barrier was not fast enough to save her completely, but it did form around the blade and tamper with the trajectory enough so that her shoulder caught the blade instead of her head. She cried out in pain, but she now had his sword entangled in one of her barriers. She bid the barrier to twist harshly, ripping the sword out of his hands and reared back, smashing the barrier-- blade and all-- against the man with enough force to lift him off of his feet and toss him no small distance away.
Asala hissed and another healing spell lit up in her hand, this one pressed against her shoulder.
Even as the cloud of entropy spells began to clear, Cyrus could see that Estella was still in the middle of a rather tense exchange with Leta. Blood ran freely from a wound cut into her side; matching red coated one edge of the blade on the elven woman's staff. She didn't seem to want to kill Stellulam outright, perhaps because she knew quite well that she was fighting one of the bearers of an Anchor, someone who was no doubt more valuable alive.
Or so it seemed. Glancing around, Leta caught on to the fact that her allies were now few. Magic sparked at her fingertips, and she thrust her hand outwards. The air rippled, something slamming into Estella and freezing her on the spot. Dropping the staff, Leta drew a knife from her belt, where it rested beside a small satchel. Stepping smoothly around behind Estella, she gripped her dark hair in one hand and wrenched back, laying the knife against her throat and forcing her several steps back, still paralyzed.
"Not another move!" The blade pressed close, drawing the thinnest of bloody lines against Stellulam's pale throat. "Not one, or she's gone, do you understand?"
Cyrus choked on air. He didn't doubt for a moment that she would do it. It would satisfy her sense of fairness as he remembered it. To take his sibling in exchange for her own. To kill an Inquisitor, even if Corypheus or whoever she served would prefer she remain alive. To make good on a threat the instant the conditions were met. That was what lives like theirs made of people like them.
Vesryn practically growled in place, rolling his shoulders and keeping both hands firmly on his axe. His eyes were locked on Leta, but his feet seemed to be locked to the ground.
"Well, well. Isn't this interesting?" A voice, as oily as it was authoritative, rasped in the quiet. A man emerged from the nearby treeline, several more Venatori stepping out with him. Most of them wore predominantly white, their robes accented with silver, but he was garbed in black, with pieces of red and gold. The mask that covered half his face was a solid, pearl-white. From the descriptions Romulus and Khari had given of the attack on Haven, these were among the most elite of the cult, and the man in black was their leader.
Hands clasped casually behind his back, he advanced, taking in the situation with a sort of facile ease. His face was relaxed, or the visible half of it was, his lips turned into a slight smile. His black eyes were sharp, though, and far too cold for his demeanor to be genuine.
He gestured with his chin, and the elites behind him fanned out, surrounding the group in a circle. They were armed with metal staves to a one, but they did not get too close, leaving at least five feet between themselves and the nearest member of the Inquisition. In Leta's grip, Estella slackened, the paralysis ending but leaving her no better off than she had been.
"Leta, dear, you seem to have miscalculated considerably, don't you think?"
Cyrus swore there was something vaguely familiar about the man, but there were so many other things crowding his mind for attention right now that it hardly mattered. He was here, surrounded by Venatori with only a few friends, if powerful ones, near-useless himself. He had nothing to fight this with, nothing but a knife in his hand and the mind in his head. And for once, he didn't know the answer. The solution did not present itself to him immediately as they so often did, and there simply wasn't time to research and experiment and think through this slowly. He had to act now, or Stellulam was going to die or worse. And the rest of them would surely follow.
He remembered a future that could have been, and desperation seized him. If all he had was a knife and his intellect, he needed to use it. The knife wouldn't save anyone. He'd be able to kill perhaps one Venatori before he was overwhelmed and condemned them all.
Unless...
Rapidly, he raised the knife and laid it against his own neck. “She miscalculated, all right."
Leta sneered at him, her lip curling. "Should have used a higher dose. You want to finish the job for me? I won't spare her just for your death in exchange, if that's what you're thinking."
The man seemed considerably more intrigued by Cyrus's actions, and tilted his head, a strand of black hair falling in front of the mask. "Come now, Leta, don't be naive. Lord Avenarius here is a Magister, or close enough. A Magister's intentions are never so... selfless. What is it she's missed, milord?" The title was given a delicate disdain that usually only other nobles could muster.
The sense of familiarity increased, as did the burning shame in the pit of his stomach, but Cyrus ignored both. This was too important. He rested the flat of the blade against his own neck, ensuring that striking him with a spell would probably kill him, and swallowed. “My notes." He said the words slowly, carefully. “They're in a cipher. If you don't have me, you won't be able to figure it out. If I die, you'll never open another Breach."
That was a bluff. His ciphers were good, no doubt, but he couldn't guarantee they were uncrackable. Fortunately, that man was right: he didn't have to go through with this. Just think his way out of it.
The mention of the papers did the trick; Leta's eyes fell towards the small satchel at her waist, near where she'd drawn the knife. They were there, then, and she probably hadn't bothered to sit down and read them, yet, which meant they should all be in the same place.
Carefully, Cyrus made eye contact with Estella, making sure he had hers, then letting his own fall towards the satchel. He lifted them back up, holding Stellulam's again and hoping, hoping that she understood.
Stellulam's eyes widened just fractionally. She dropped them down and to the side, completely still in Leta's grip. It would seem she'd understood what he was trying to convey, but there was still the matter of the knife at her neck, and the very little room she had to move. Her right hand shifted. She closed her fist once.
"Oh come now, Lord Avenarius. You're not the only clever man to have ever walked Thedas. In fact, I'd take you for quite a stupid one, knowing what I do about you." His words seemed only to have amused the Venatori's leader, whose smile inched a little further up the exposed side of his face. "If that's all you have, we'll be capturing the Lady Inquisitor and killing the rest of you, I should think."
He raised a hand as if to order it done, but at the same moment, Estella's left hand burst into flame; she pressed it into Leta's side, right against the satchel. Simultaneously, the mark on her right crackled, wreathing her in green light. She threw herself forward, but the jump wasn't nearly as well-performed as the one in the Fade, and she wound up falling down about halfway between Leta and Vesryn with a cry of pain.
“Shit." Cyrus did not often use vulgarities, but if any situation called for them, this was it.
The Venatori looked to their leader; Cyrus knew it would be a matter of seconds before they were engulfed in magic too dense to escape. But before he could give the command, the masked man was struck in the side by a bolt of lightning even Cyrus could envy. It chained to Leta and the other cultists nearby with a heavy, crackling rapport. All of them collapsed; almost immediately, the remaining Venatori turned to face whatever threat was oncoming. Cyrus didn't look—it had come from the direction of the eluvian. They'd know what it was soon enough. For now, they had to move.
“Run! Back through the mirror!"
Vesryn moved quickly, his reactions perhaps driven by the superior instinct in his head rather than his own, and he was immediately in motion towards Estella. Carrying his axe in one hand, he reached down with the other, grabbing hold of her arm. "Very sorry about this." He pulled her rather forcefully to her feet, as there was no time to delay. That said, he made every effort to support her once she was up. "We need to move, now."
She seemed to be having some trouble complying, or running outright, but she moved reasonably quickly, following he and Asala back down the path towards the eluvian.
Cyrus hurried after, his body still battered and weary. But at least he didn't have to force any of the Venatori out of the way—Vesryn and Asala were doing a fine job with barriers and more conventional methods. Like boots to the chest. It helped that the cultists were clearly dug in and fighting the intruder.
It didn't take long to make it far enough down the path to identify him. Cyrus knew him on sight—but that didn't explain what he was doing here. Or how he'd managed to follow them. Or why he'd want to. It was... too many questions, for the moment. He could at least be relatively certain that the armor-clad elf was an ally. The way he reflected the Venatori's magical projectiles back at them with pinpoint precision was evidence enough for now. The steady hum of the green longblades in each hand was a familiar sound; the crack when they deflected a Winter's Grasp back at a cluster of the cultists less so.
"Do hurry, please. It would be difficult to keep this up all day. New password's Mythal'enaste."
When they made it to the eluvian, Cyrus glanced at Estella. “If you would, Stellulam?" As soon as she'd given the password, they were through.
They hadn't made it more than three steps forward before their rescuer stepped in behind them, blinking grass-colored eyes at those present. The blades he'd summoned were gone, but there was no mistaking the exotic nature of his appearance. His head was shaved on both sides and beneath, leaving only the top third or so, but that was thick and ink-dark, gathered into a tail on the back of his head. His smile was pleasant as one pleased, but the armor was clearly not for show, however polished the engraved breastplate with its sprawling tree design.
He took a look at Stellulam, pursing his lips. "I'd introduce myself to your friends, but I think that can wait. If I return through your eluvian with you, will I get stabbed?"
Cyrus was too tired to say anything clever in return. “No..." His vision faded, fatigue catching up with him again, and this time it would not be denied. The ground rushed up beneath him, but he didn't even feel the impact.