Blood Wound Chapter 10

[miri1984]

Title: Girl's got guts.
Words: 2300 (wow, this is like, an EPIC chapter for me!)
Characters: Alim, Anders, Oghren, Sigrun
Rating: T++ (Alim has a potty mouth)
Summary: Sigrun! And a BAMF Golem. And stuff.

Thanks to Amhran Comrac for being a sounding board for ideas and of course, encouraging and joining in to my obsessive Anders in DA2 squee-fest. It has been a good week!

 

"You're claustrophobic?"

Anders shifted from foot to foot as they looked into the chasm. "Just a teeny bit," he said, sounding sheepish.

Alim rolled his eyes. "Aren't you the one who told me dosing yourself with magic was allowed?" he said. "Give yourself a zap, lover boy, you won't notice the fear if you do."

"Fine, fine," Anders said. "But I'll have you know no darkspawn has yet to be felled by me giggling at them."

"You might be surprised," Alim said as Anders called forth a thin tendril of power and a blue green glow briefly settled into his skin. "Don't overdo it and you'll be fine."

Anders huffed, but there was the hint of a grin around his lips. Alim repressed a sudden urge to shudder - or to dose himself the same way. He wasn't claustrophobic, and he suspected Anders' problem stemmed from his year in solitary. If anything, Alim had been the opposite when he first left the Tower. He still remembered how nauseous he'd felt in the boat back across to the shores of Lake Calenhad.

They began their descent into the chasm. Alim sensed the darkspawn first, and tried to approach cautiously, until he heard the unmistakable sound of a woman's shout amidst the grunts and calls of hurlocks.

"They've got someone," he hissed to Anders, and set off at a sprint towards the sounds. He didn't check to see if Oghren or Anders followed - just assumed they would, and when he rounded the corner and came face to face with the group and the dwarven woman with them he started casting without thinking.

The fight was short and brutal and the dwarven woman - who was wearing the armour of one of the Legion of the Dead to his astonishment, was doubled over panting at the end of it. She'd wielded a wicked looking axe and dagger with a good deal of skill during the fight, but it was obvious she was dangerously tired and possibly injured.

"Well," she said. "That was close. For a moment there I thought I was really about to join the Legion of the Dead."

"Are you all right?" Alim asked.

"I might have cracked a rib, but it's hard to be sure," she gave a remarkably sunny grin and Alim found his own lips twitching in response. "Everything hurts."

"Anders," he said, and the other mage nodded and approached the girl. She waved an arm, however, and shook her head.

"No.. it's all right," she said, but Anders tutted and called forth magic. Alim saw her eyes closed and tension leak out of her shoulders as he worked. He couldn't help eavesdropping while he did so - remembering the feel of his magic yesterday and nursing a flame of envy at how effortless he seemed to make it.

"Cracked rib, wrenched shoulder joint and bruising to the kidneys, young lady," Anders said, eyebrow twitching as he turned on his charm. The dwarf girl, however, seemed oblivious.

"Thank you," she said. "Wow. That feels… so much better…"

"You should rest."

"No, no. I'm fine. I just need to catch my breath. Anyway, I can't chat for long. I should probably go back… as foolish as that sounds… see if there's anything I can do."

Anders looked from her, to Oghren, to Alim and back to her, face puzzled. "What? Aren't any of you going to stop her from going?"

"She's in the Legion," Oghren said, his voice gruff with respect. "It's what she does. But we're not going to let her go alone, are we Commander?"

"Commander?" the girl looked up. Alim nodded.

"I'm a grey warden," he said softly. "Tell me what you know."

Her name was Sigrun, and she was indeed, a legionnaire. Alim listened to her story with mounting concern - this wasn't going to be an easy trip down to the roads to find out what was happening and a leisurely stroll back up again. The chances of them being less than a day down here were rapidly decreasing. Two factions of darkspawn? Building an army…

He was confused. It wasn't typical darskpawn behaviour - nothing he'd read in Weisshaupt had mentioned anything like this. Add to that the talking darkspawn and he was suddenly very nervous about descending into the deep roads with three wardens and one Legionnaire.

"I'd be happier if we could send for reinforcements," he said when Sigrun had finished her story.

"Huh. If we had any," Oghren said. "We can't take common soldiers down there, even sparklefingers is jittery about it. Deep roads is dwarves and warden work, Commander."

Alim nodded at his friend. "You're right," he said. "And it's not as though we did the Dead Trenches with many more, is it?"

"Too bloody right," Oghren said, hefting his axe.

"You're coming with me?" Sigrun said. "Well! The more the merrier. Except for the merry part, I guess."

She bounced. Alim blinked, completely nonplussed. Oghren, however, laughed. "Girl's got guts," he said as they followed her down into the darkness. "And a hell of a nice rump to go with it."

"Oghren, you are still a married man," Alim said.

"Bah. Sodding fun spoiler."

---

The next four hours passed in a blur of darkness and darkspawn and stench and blood. They sat, in the middle of a room in the ruins of KalHirol, while Sigrun and Oghren examined a tablet that commemorated the heroism of people who owed nothing, yet still sacrificed everything. Alim had to force himself to blink. His mind was numb with the ghosts they'd seen and the sheer…. idiocy of the world. He couldn't imagine what Oghren and Sigrun were thinking. Oghren was originally warrior caste - but the dwarf had never shown any sign of the casual hate for duster dwarves that Alim had seen in Orzammar.

Orzammar had made Alim's head hurt, in more ways than one. Not just the heat, and the rock, and the oppressive, ever present niggling of darkspawn-just-out-of-reach, but the line that was so clearly and irreversibly drawn between us and them. It reminded him of the Tower - Templars and Mages. It reminded him of the Alienage - humans and elves. It reminded him of all the little ways people tried to create groups for themselves that somehow made them better than everyone else, without any reason behind it other than blood or power or the shape of their sodding ears.

"Are you all right?" Anders said. Alim had pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, trying to force all the memories back where they belonged, but it was so hard, back here in the deep roads.

Hard not to think about where he would end up, one day. One of those piles of bones in the corner Zevran had taken such delight in looting. How many of them had been wardens? "Fine. Fine. How's the claustrophobia going?"

"Oh, it was great. Just great until you mentioned it," Anders said, but he was grinning. "No, seriously, it's not so bad any more. Finding that bucket of lyrium was a plus, too."

"You'll be mixing that into potions for weeks," Alim pointed out.

"Hey, I love mortars and pestles and flasks and burners. And being alone in a room while I work - I don't think that will ever get old. Especially when I know I'm making it for me and not for Biff and Rylock and their mates. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling in my belly."

Alim managed a laugh. When Oghren and Sigrun returned, they had sombre expressions on their faces. He nodded, understanding, and they got on their way.

---

The sounds coming from the end of the corridor were enough to give him pause. Nothing he knew had a tread that heavy - except for a dragon, and he really really didn't feel like fighting another one of the buggers.

"How're your ice spells?" he asked Anders.

"I'm better with lightning," the other mage said. "Why?"

Oghren was looking grim. "Something big up ahead," he said. Sigrun nodded, and they all hefted their weapons and edged forward carefully.

"Sodding tits of the ancestors," Oghren breathed as the contents of the room came into view. A massive steel golem, wreathed in flames. Two darkspawn, one caught in the fist of the golem, and another, ranting about some "mother" or somesuch in that lisping voice they seemed to have acquired.

Alim was no fan of any kind of darkspawn, but watching one be ripped in two by something he was almost certainly going to have to fight did nothing for his nerves or his stomach.

The darkspawn that remained was completely insane. Insane, and in command of the most powerful golem Alim had ever seen.

"Oghren, Sigrun, get back," he shouted as the golem started lumbering towards them, then nodded at Anders. "Lightning from you, ice from me," he said as he started to cast.

Sheer elemental force shot from both of the mages and bathed the cavernous space in destruction. Alim cursed as he realised the darkspawn had some magic resistence, but at least the golem was taking heavy damage from the ice and lightning playing over its massive frame. When the storms dissipated Sigrun and Oghren rushed to tackle the darkspawn, Oghren felling it to start with a focused smite that Alim felt the edges of himself. Anders and he concentrated on staying out of the golem's way, trying with all their might and power to stop it from focusing on the two melee fighters.

Wintersbreath throbbed in his hands as he drew on power reserves he didn't know he had to freeze the golem over and over again. Anders hit it with lightning every now and then, but most of his efforts were concentrated on healing the others.

When finally the darkspawn fell Oghren and Sigrun focused their attention on the golem and the battle seemed to turn. The golem's right leg stopped working and they were able to hack at it from behind without much danger of being hit by its flailing fists. Only its periodic gouts of flame were a problem, and Oghren and Sigrun avoided them with that dwarven nimbleness that Alim had always admired.

When finally, the golem staggered and fell, he had not a scrap of lyrium or mana left, He'd been using the charge of Wintersbreath only to channel what magic he could scoop from the fade as it came. He felt utterly empty and completely exhausted.

"Ah… a little help…" the voice was high and urgent and full of pain.

Anders.

"By the stone!" Sigrun.

"Alim get your skinny arse over here now." Oghren.

The golem had fallen. But Alim hadn't been paying attention to where.

"This hurts a lot," Anders again. "'Sgood thing I'm about to pass out."

Alim dropped Wintersbreath and ran to the side of the golem, where the human mage was pinned underneath its carapace. His right arm and leg were trapped, his robes and skin pierced by the edge of the golem's shell.

Fuck.

"Don't mind if you heal me when I'm asleep," Anders muttered, blood forming on his lips as he spoke. "Won't hurt then…" the brown eyes drifted shut.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

No mana, no lyrium. "I'll help you get it off him, Commander," Oghren said.

"No. No no no," Alim said. "If we pull the shell out now it'll take half his blood supply with it. The shell's plugging the wound. I'll need to heal it as we go." Heal it with what? He frantically searched the mage's robes. No lyrium. No secret stashes. He could run back to the raw lyrium.. no. It would take him an hour, maybe more, to mix a potion from raw lyrium and Anders didn't have that much time.

Fuck.

His eyes fell on his pack, resting against the wall of the room where they'd dumped their gear when the battle began. He didn't stop to think, just prayed to the maker it was as easy as Jowan had made it look as he leapt to his feet and sprinted for the pack, rooting through it for the book and opening it to the first page.

"He's reading a book," Sigrun's voice. He shouldn't pay attention, he needed to concentrate. At least he only had dwarves with him for this. Neither of them were likely to scream maleficar.

His eyes scanned the pages. So absurdly simple. Have the right words, the right tools, and blood magic was easier than any spell he'd ever sweated over in the Tower. No wonder people were so afraid of it. Blood as mana. The words of the spell to access power, ancient Tevinter. He gritted his teeth and drew his dagger, closing his eyes as he recited the words and stabbed his hand.

Oh Holy Maker… the rush of power was like nothing he'd ever experienced. Not his own, nor Anders' nor Wynne's magic had ever felt like this. He stood up, rejuvenated, raced back to where Anders was lying, the skin around his lips and eyes already looking slack. Oghren merely nodded at him - Sigrun seemed oblivious.

"Right," he said shakily. "Let's get started."