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[Cloudreach, 9:41 Dragon]
So. This is death.
Sati had never given much mind to what followed life. Her attention had been more preoccupied with how she could stave off the end of it for as long as possible, and of course she knew of the Fade. She'd hoped to see some old faces, but the enshrouding darkness and silence did not take her much by surprise.
The cold did, though. She felt it creeping in at the edges of her fingers, up through her limbs until a tremor seized her, bringing with it an agonising shaft of pain. Sati fought the urge to curl in on herself. Instead, she lay very still as she made an inventory of her injuries, testing each part of her body carefully.
There were many. Besides the injuries she had sustained fighting the red templars, being thrown full body against the trebuchet had cracked at least a couple of ribs, and her arm ached viciously from dangling from Corypheus' grip. Not to mention falling down through scaffolding into…
Where was she now?
Beneath Haven. Yes. She'd seen the distant flare of light on the hill, indicating that most of the Inquisition were almost to safety, and she'd fully expected to die trying to buy them more time from the persuing army. She'd hoped to take Corypheus down too, but his pet dragon had swooped him to safety as she fell down into the dark.
By now she'd acknowledged she wasn't actually dead, but she could feel the breath of it on her neck. Fighting had already exhausted her, her body was broken in numerous ways, and if she just lay here with her eyes closed, the cold would soon take her. In the end, it would be a remarkably gentle way to go.
But the Inquisition still existed, and nobody else had heard Corypheus' ravings. She might be the only one who knew. And besides, even though the Breach was gone, there still might be rifts. Corypheus could tear them open himself.
Very slowly, Sati shifted beneath the planks and rubble that covered her, gingerly sliding herself to freedom before gaining her feet. Thin light from deep mushrooms, and the ambient green shimmer from her hand, provided enough light to show that she'd fallen into one of the mines. There would be a way out onto the far mountainside, and then...and then she would go looking for the Inquisition.
Ruin had been lost, thrown back in the blast before Corypheus and his dragon had shut her off from the others. Fortunately there was still a dagger at her waist, but it was a moot point anyway. She was in no shape to fight, and the memory of that moment didn't help. She'd been nervous about jobs before, startled, even horrified, but at no other time in her life had she felt so utterly scared and helpless. The dragon could have swallowed her whole, and she was unable to do anything to Corypheus other than take a swing at him. At least setting off the avalanche had felt like taking her death into her own hands.
Just getting to the end of the tunnels was tiring, and on the far side, a blizzard blocked the way. If she'd had any supplies at all, Sati would have remained, making camp and waiting out the storm. But there was nothing. If she waited here, either cold or hunger would see her off.
And there was the faintest glimmer of hope. Between the swirling flakes, she thought she could see a distant yellow smudge. A campfire. Something she could aim for, rather than blundering around in the snow until she expired.
Gritting her teeth, Sati wrapped her cloak around her face, tucked her hands up under her arms, and pushed out into the storm.
The snow was deep and soft. Each step sent Sati sinking almost up to the knee, and pulling her feet free again sent off fresh tangles of pain. The pain was good. It kept her awake, it kept her focused. All she had to do was make it to the campfire, and then she could succumb to the growing urge to simply collapse into the snow.
Think of something else.
They’d all thought their problems solved. The Breach had been sealed. Everybody wanted to celebrate, and while each member of the council had voiced concerns over things yet to be done, it seemed a fitting moment to let down their guard. The problems of how to house their mage allies now that Ferelden’s protection had been revoked, and whether more rifts remained, could wait a week or so. Out of habit Sati had remained poised for further bad news, but after a few drinks and watching faces normally drawn tight loosen a little in merriment, she’d allowed herself a moment of respite.
Then the scouts had come, shouting reports of the approaching army. In the midst of the fighting, Roderick of all people had proven himself useful, providing Haven’s population with a way to safety. The arrival of the strange boy who came with a more dire warning. For a while, Sati thought they might stand a chance of saving the town - the trebuchets saw off many of the invading templars, and the Inquisition’s soldiers proved the worth of Cassandra and Cullen’s training. They’d almost won, up until that dragon had arrived.
Sati didn’t know what had happened to her companions after she’d been cut off from them. Hopefully they’d heeded her shouted order to get away. It was best not to think about that. She’d find out the truth when she reached the campsite -
Lost in her thoughts, it took a moment for her to register the crunch from underfoot had not come from snow, but branches. Blearily, she gazed down at the blackened twigs that had once formed the basis of a fire.
She’d missed them.
But there were tracks; the blizzard yet hadn’t obliterated the wide trail left by the fleeing crowd. There was the smallest fragment of warmth in the twigs. It hadn’t been a campfire, but a guide fire, lit by the scouts to help herd the bulk of the people through the mountain paths. It had likely only just burnt out. Which hopefully meant the others weren’t too far ahead. All she had to do was catch up with the rearguard.
Sati peered up through the swirling snow, and found the fork between the two mountain peaks. There. She had to get there.
As she trudged, she revisited other occasions in which she’d been bogged down, by rain or mud or baggage, grimly pushing her way forward towards her destination. She was seventeen again, making her way back to where she’d last seen her parents, still carrying her grief over Ser Lehmann’s death inside her like a deep wound. In her less lucid moments, she sometimes thought she’d seen him out of the corner of her eye, keeping steady pace beside her.
He was with her now, and although she knew he was the result of her weakening grip on reality, Sati found his presence comforting. He wasn’t hampered by the snow, stepping easily through it, wearing his tourney armour - battered, but shining. “A warrior tends to their armour, as thanks for its protection. However, no knight of any worth has armour without dents.” The sleek silver head turned towards her. “But perhaps, for now, yours has served its purpose.”
Sati stumbled, then paused. It was dangerous to stop, but with cold fingers, she started to unbuckle the piecemeal armour she’d managed to strap to herself after Haven had been attacked. There had been no time to get her own. Shed of the weight, she found it a little easier to walk. The illusion of Ser Lehmann nodded approval, although his expression was sad.
“A knight carries many burdens. Knowing how to manage them is key. I tried to teach you this, but I couldn’t have prepared you for what you were to face. All I can tell you is to keep going.”
Sati knew it was her own mind talking to her, but she took it as an order. One foot forward, then another. The elevation steepened, and her breath started to rasp in her chest. The cold was inside her lungs now, and no matter how deeply she pulled, the air was too thin for her. Eventually, she had to remove her hands from under her arms, grasping forward on hands and feet to continue her journey up. Within moments, they were burning; then they started to go cold.
She’d never really believed in the Maker. But if He existed, and had put her through all of this only to die on the side of this mountain while a darkspawn magister proceeded to lay waste to Thedas, she was going to murder Him. She was no Herald of Andraste. She was just one mercenary who had been in either the very right or very wrong place at the moment she needed to be. But she had to do this. Whether by divine meddling or simple chance, she had ended up in the middle of all this, and she had to keep going…
Her hand met empty air. Her weight carried on forward, and then suddenly she was rolling down, floundering over and over in the snow until it thickened enough to break her landing. She’d made it over the top, but now she was lying down, and pushing herself back up again was almost more than she could bear...until she saw the fires. Multiple of them, and not too far off.
The snow had cleared, but it was dark, and if she collapsed now before anybody saw her, she wouldn’t be able to get back up again. Sati gathered the last lingering threads of her strength, and charged forwards, flinging herself down the hill towards the light.
She stumbled and flailed, pain ringing around her body like a gong as each injury jostled another in its bid for attention. There was a startled shout somewhere off in the distance, then Sati’s feet twisted in one another, and this time when she collapsed to her knees, she knew that was it. She had nothing else left.
She’d made it. Torches bobbed towards her, armoured footsteps clanked and crashed against the ground, then a pale face pushed itself towards her, eyes widening, before pulling away again to shout into the darkness.
“It’s the Herald! The Herald lives!”
As the cry went up across the mountain, Sati fell forwards, sinking gratefully into a black oblivion.
So. This is death.
Sati had never given much mind to what followed life. Her attention had been more preoccupied with how she could stave off the end of it for as long as possible, and of course she knew of the Fade. She'd hoped to see some old faces, but the enshrouding darkness and silence did not take her much by surprise.
The cold did, though. She felt it creeping in at the edges of her fingers, up through her limbs until a tremor seized her, bringing with it an agonising shaft of pain. Sati fought the urge to curl in on herself. Instead, she lay very still as she made an inventory of her injuries, testing each part of her body carefully.
There were many. Besides the injuries she had sustained fighting the red templars, being thrown full body against the trebuchet had cracked at least a couple of ribs, and her arm ached viciously from dangling from Corypheus' grip. Not to mention falling down through scaffolding into…
Where was she now?
Beneath Haven. Yes. She'd seen the distant flare of light on the hill, indicating that most of the Inquisition were almost to safety, and she'd fully expected to die trying to buy them more time from the persuing army. She'd hoped to take Corypheus down too, but his pet dragon had swooped him to safety as she fell down into the dark.
By now she'd acknowledged she wasn't actually dead, but she could feel the breath of it on her neck. Fighting had already exhausted her, her body was broken in numerous ways, and if she just lay here with her eyes closed, the cold would soon take her. In the end, it would be a remarkably gentle way to go.
But the Inquisition still existed, and nobody else had heard Corypheus' ravings. She might be the only one who knew. And besides, even though the Breach was gone, there still might be rifts. Corypheus could tear them open himself.
Very slowly, Sati shifted beneath the planks and rubble that covered her, gingerly sliding herself to freedom before gaining her feet. Thin light from deep mushrooms, and the ambient green shimmer from her hand, provided enough light to show that she'd fallen into one of the mines. There would be a way out onto the far mountainside, and then...and then she would go looking for the Inquisition.
Ruin had been lost, thrown back in the blast before Corypheus and his dragon had shut her off from the others. Fortunately there was still a dagger at her waist, but it was a moot point anyway. She was in no shape to fight, and the memory of that moment didn't help. She'd been nervous about jobs before, startled, even horrified, but at no other time in her life had she felt so utterly scared and helpless. The dragon could have swallowed her whole, and she was unable to do anything to Corypheus other than take a swing at him. At least setting off the avalanche had felt like taking her death into her own hands.
Just getting to the end of the tunnels was tiring, and on the far side, a blizzard blocked the way. If she'd had any supplies at all, Sati would have remained, making camp and waiting out the storm. But there was nothing. If she waited here, either cold or hunger would see her off.
And there was the faintest glimmer of hope. Between the swirling flakes, she thought she could see a distant yellow smudge. A campfire. Something she could aim for, rather than blundering around in the snow until she expired.
Gritting her teeth, Sati wrapped her cloak around her face, tucked her hands up under her arms, and pushed out into the storm.
The snow was deep and soft. Each step sent Sati sinking almost up to the knee, and pulling her feet free again sent off fresh tangles of pain. The pain was good. It kept her awake, it kept her focused. All she had to do was make it to the campfire, and then she could succumb to the growing urge to simply collapse into the snow.
Think of something else.
They’d all thought their problems solved. The Breach had been sealed. Everybody wanted to celebrate, and while each member of the council had voiced concerns over things yet to be done, it seemed a fitting moment to let down their guard. The problems of how to house their mage allies now that Ferelden’s protection had been revoked, and whether more rifts remained, could wait a week or so. Out of habit Sati had remained poised for further bad news, but after a few drinks and watching faces normally drawn tight loosen a little in merriment, she’d allowed herself a moment of respite.
Then the scouts had come, shouting reports of the approaching army. In the midst of the fighting, Roderick of all people had proven himself useful, providing Haven’s population with a way to safety. The arrival of the strange boy who came with a more dire warning. For a while, Sati thought they might stand a chance of saving the town - the trebuchets saw off many of the invading templars, and the Inquisition’s soldiers proved the worth of Cassandra and Cullen’s training. They’d almost won, up until that dragon had arrived.
Sati didn’t know what had happened to her companions after she’d been cut off from them. Hopefully they’d heeded her shouted order to get away. It was best not to think about that. She’d find out the truth when she reached the campsite -
Lost in her thoughts, it took a moment for her to register the crunch from underfoot had not come from snow, but branches. Blearily, she gazed down at the blackened twigs that had once formed the basis of a fire.
She’d missed them.
But there were tracks; the blizzard yet hadn’t obliterated the wide trail left by the fleeing crowd. There was the smallest fragment of warmth in the twigs. It hadn’t been a campfire, but a guide fire, lit by the scouts to help herd the bulk of the people through the mountain paths. It had likely only just burnt out. Which hopefully meant the others weren’t too far ahead. All she had to do was catch up with the rearguard.
Sati peered up through the swirling snow, and found the fork between the two mountain peaks. There. She had to get there.
As she trudged, she revisited other occasions in which she’d been bogged down, by rain or mud or baggage, grimly pushing her way forward towards her destination. She was seventeen again, making her way back to where she’d last seen her parents, still carrying her grief over Ser Lehmann’s death inside her like a deep wound. In her less lucid moments, she sometimes thought she’d seen him out of the corner of her eye, keeping steady pace beside her.
He was with her now, and although she knew he was the result of her weakening grip on reality, Sati found his presence comforting. He wasn’t hampered by the snow, stepping easily through it, wearing his tourney armour - battered, but shining. “A warrior tends to their armour, as thanks for its protection. However, no knight of any worth has armour without dents.” The sleek silver head turned towards her. “But perhaps, for now, yours has served its purpose.”
Sati stumbled, then paused. It was dangerous to stop, but with cold fingers, she started to unbuckle the piecemeal armour she’d managed to strap to herself after Haven had been attacked. There had been no time to get her own. Shed of the weight, she found it a little easier to walk. The illusion of Ser Lehmann nodded approval, although his expression was sad.
“A knight carries many burdens. Knowing how to manage them is key. I tried to teach you this, but I couldn’t have prepared you for what you were to face. All I can tell you is to keep going.”
Sati knew it was her own mind talking to her, but she took it as an order. One foot forward, then another. The elevation steepened, and her breath started to rasp in her chest. The cold was inside her lungs now, and no matter how deeply she pulled, the air was too thin for her. Eventually, she had to remove her hands from under her arms, grasping forward on hands and feet to continue her journey up. Within moments, they were burning; then they started to go cold.
She’d never really believed in the Maker. But if He existed, and had put her through all of this only to die on the side of this mountain while a darkspawn magister proceeded to lay waste to Thedas, she was going to murder Him. She was no Herald of Andraste. She was just one mercenary who had been in either the very right or very wrong place at the moment she needed to be. But she had to do this. Whether by divine meddling or simple chance, she had ended up in the middle of all this, and she had to keep going…
Her hand met empty air. Her weight carried on forward, and then suddenly she was rolling down, floundering over and over in the snow until it thickened enough to break her landing. She’d made it over the top, but now she was lying down, and pushing herself back up again was almost more than she could bear...until she saw the fires. Multiple of them, and not too far off.
The snow had cleared, but it was dark, and if she collapsed now before anybody saw her, she wouldn’t be able to get back up again. Sati gathered the last lingering threads of her strength, and charged forwards, flinging herself down the hill towards the light.
She stumbled and flailed, pain ringing around her body like a gong as each injury jostled another in its bid for attention. There was a startled shout somewhere off in the distance, then Sati’s feet twisted in one another, and this time when she collapsed to her knees, she knew that was it. She had nothing else left.
She’d made it. Torches bobbed towards her, armoured footsteps clanked and crashed against the ground, then a pale face pushed itself towards her, eyes widening, before pulling away again to shout into the darkness.
“It’s the Herald! The Herald lives!”
As the cry went up across the mountain, Sati fell forwards, sinking gratefully into a black oblivion.
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