peopleofthedas | Blood Wound Chapter 13

Title: We're official Now
Words: 1900
Characters: Alim, Anders, Oghren, Nathaniel, Sigrun
Summary: Alim wants to know what's under the keep. And Nathaniel's skirt.

"Where're we going?" Sigrun hadn't lost any of her bounciness. Alim found it strangely soothing, and in direct contrast to the broody Howe who stood next to the statue of Andraste with his bow slung over his shoulder and his nose and his hair and his…

Alim turned his attention away from the Howe, and back to Wade and Herren, who were busy fitting the dwarf with new warden armour. Her Legion gear had been fine quality, but worn and ill-fitting. He guessed that the Legion would pass armour on whenever a comrade fell - it wasn't as though armourers and weaponsmiths were common in the deep roads. The dwarven girl was extremely tough, though, and he had Wade fashion her some warden chain in white steel. Anders was newly resplendent in robes the same as Alim's own, Oghren still wore the suit they'd scrounged from the deep roads under Orzammar. warden plate was good, but not as good as that, and Alim was hardly going to insist they all wear matching outfits. It was important that Anders and he be recognised as wardens on first glance, but the others were free to wear whatever they wanted. For now.

He looked back at the Howe, in his fine leathers, and pursed his lips.

"Under the keep," Alim told Sigrun, who was having the last of her straps adjusted. "Maverlies says there's an entrance to the deep roads there."

"Ooh, really? We never knew about that!"

"Neither did I," Nathaniel said, sounding curious.

"Humf," Alim said. "Well, we'll go down and have a look. The last thing we need is for Darkspawn to shoot up and attack us in the middle of a justice hearing."

"Might break the monotony a bit," Oghren said. Alim rolled his eyes, then turned his attention to Sigrun.

"She's done, Commander," Wade said. "But I'm not happy with it… I haven't had cause to make for dwarves in a while and I think…"

"Are you kidding?" Sigrun said, eyes shining as she spun around to show of the new chain. "This is awesome! I've never had anything this pretty!" She stopped and threw her arms around Wade, who looked completely nonplussed for a moment before patting her shoulder awkwardly.

"Why… thank you… miss…" he said. Alim hid a chuckle behind his hand.

"Can we go and kill things now?" Sigrun stopped hugging Wade, who still looked shocked, and pulled out the sword and dagger Alim had given her from the armoury. Dumat's spine was made from the bones of the last archdemon - and Alim had never seen its equal. Not even Starfang matched it for quality. He'd given her a dagger as well… although his mind shied away from its origin. Seeing it resting in her fingers he'd felt how subtly wrong it looked - the dwarf's fingers were stubby and strong, not the long-fingered elegant ones he remembered. But it was the best dagger he owned, and Sigrun deserved to fight with weapons that matched her skill. He'd asked her if she preferred axes but she'd shaken her head. Apparently in the legion you used whatever weapon you could get your hands on.

It sounded all to familiar to Alim, whose equipment until recently had always been scrounged from corpses.

"A proper bunch of fighters, eh Commander?" Oghren said, grinning, and fingering his axe. "Far cry from what we used to use in the Blight."

"Oh, yes," Alim managed a grin at his friend. "We're official now."

"These robes are too short," Anders said grumpily.

"Anders, the boots reach your knees," Alim said. "And if you want to complain about short, have a look up Nathaniel's skirt why don't you."

Anders sniggered. "Oh I was, Commander, I was…" The tone was enough to make Alim look at Anders sharply… before he shook his head. Now would not be the time to discover he'd always been wrong about the mage. And Nathaniel's legs were distraction enough for now. The man's a Howe, and he has a terrible nose, Alim said to himself. But part of his brain was filling in Zevran's comments.

I am certain with a little coaxing we could exploit his darker tendencies, uomo magico…

In the basement Nathaniel stopped, looking confused. Puddles of blood still remained from the ghouls they had cleared out before he'd been freed. "These cells didn't use to be here," he said, his voice strained.

Alim cocked an eyebrow at him, but didn't bother to reply. "There's a door down here we couldn't open," Oghren said gruffly. "Wonder if it's where your daddy kept his nastier secrets."

"The door to the foundations?" Nathaniel said. "I could open it, if you wanted. We were never allowed in there as a child.. but I picked the lock once," the dark haired rogue smiled slightly and tipped his head. "I could never get up the courage to actually go through, though."

Alim shuddered, thinking of what might be down there. "Perhaps on the way back up," he said.

When they got down to where the cave in had been cleared Nathaniel gave a low cry. The clean up crews hadn't managed to remove the corpses from down here - the area wasn't likely to be used so it had been pushed to the bottom of the list. Nathaniel rushed to the side of the ghoul woman with a choked sound in the back of his throat.

"Adria," he said. "No!"

"You knew her?" Alim said.

"She… she brought us up. Delilah, Thomas and I. She was… dearer than a mother to me. Did these darkspawn kill her?"

Alim caught Oghren's eye, then Anders'. The dwarf shook his head minutely and Anders bit his lip. It wouldn't do for Nathaniel to learn that Oghren had caused the gaping wounds on her chest - that Anders had caused the burn marks down her side - that Alim had cast the crushing prison that ended what had become the misery of her life.

"Yes," Alim said softly. "They killed her." In a way it was true, he supposed, but he still felt obscurely guilty. When they still looked human it was always more difficult.

"Well then," Nathaniel said, and his voice had returned to its regular flat, dry tone. "Let's go and kill some more of them."

In the darkness of the deep roads he managed to overcome some of his dislike for the archer. He was skilled - far more so than Leliana or Zevran with a bow, deadly accuracy felling enemies before Sigrun or Oghren could even get to them, leaving Anders and Alim free to concentrate on felling groups that were further away, or healing. He was fast with daggers as well, although not quite as skilled at hand to hand as Sigrun or Oghren, and his lockpicking skills were surprisingly good for someone who was a noble. Far better than Zevran's had been. He wondered how many locked rooms and chests the man had found his way into during the course of his life. Wondered exactly what he'd been up to in the Free Marches. Wondered exactly how well he knew his father.

When they reached the barrier door they were in surprisingly good shape. When the door was shut, finally, Alim had time to think Alistair couldn't really have picked a better place to house the wardens - their own personal deep roads entrance? He may never have to go back to Orzammar.

This was, in his opinion, a very good thing.

When they got back to the locked door in the basement Nathaniel went forward and examined it. "We were never allowed here as children," he said. "My father never told us why. Adria said there were Avvar spirits. My father said she was a fool."

"Your father thought a lot of people were fools," Alim said. "He's the dead one, however."

Nathaniel didn't bother to look at him, but Anders frowned. A few moments later, the lock snicked open and Nathaniel stood upright. "Adria wasn't a fool," he said softly. "I'd be on your guard if I were you."

A few seconds later, Alim had to acknowledge that the woman had been right. Avvar spirits, demons inhabiting corpses - he'd dealt with it all before, but these were particularly tough specimens and it took a lot of effort to put them down. In the end he shouted at the others to run back into the basement and called down a firestorm, racing back up the stairs and taking a crossbow bolt in the shoulder as he lunged for the door. Oghren's strong hands pulled him the rest of the way through and he collapsed as Nathaniel and Sigrun slammed it shut behind him, the scattering of thunks against the wood telling him the animated corpses were still firing, despite being rapidly reduced to cinders by his spell. He was out of mana… not that that's a problem any more… and exhausted and leaned heavily on the dwarf as they moved away from the door, which was beginning to become hot to the touch.

"Anders?" he gasped out. The healer stepped forward and gently helped Oghren lower him to the ground.

"Where was your shield?" Anders asked softly, as his long fingers examined the wound, forcing a sharp hiss of pain from his lips as they probed to see how deep it went.

"Used the last of my mana to cast the firestorm," Alim said through gritted teeth.

"Well, I begin to see the logic behind the heavier robes," Anders' tone was light, belying the strength in his fingers as he gripped the bolt. Alim braced himself, and the older man yanked hard, pulling the bolt from the wound and covering it with his other hand, calling forth healing as he did so. Alim felt the skin knitting back together and sighed as the pain leaked away.

"Are we getting older or are walking corpses getting harder to kill?" Oghren said, fingering the head of his axe.

"We're getting older," Alim said, getting to his feet. "And they're getting harder to kill." Oghren laughed. Sigrun was about to open the door again, but Alim caught her arm. "We won't be able to go back in there for a while," he said. "There won't be enough air, and the heat from the firestorm will still be enough to hurt. Best we go back later."

"Wouldn't be much point any way," Anders said. "If Rendon Howe was keeping anything safe down there, it's ash and cinders by now."

"There was another room," Nathaniel said softly. "Did you not see? And those stone sarcophagi might have things inside - stone does not burn."

"Curious to see what your father didn't want you to?" Alim said, slightly teasing.

Nathaniel met his gaze squarely. "Yes," he said simply. "Wouldn't you be?"

Alim pursed his lips and shrugged. "I suppose so," he said. "Although I'm not one to obsessively open locked doors. Sometimes they're locked for a reason."

Anders snorted. "Never a good reason, in my experience."

"Get some rest, everyone," Alim said. "We'll come back down tomorrow."