![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scarylady) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
peopleofthedas2011-04-21 10:24 pm
Trouble & Strife: Chapter Fifty Four
Much love as always to
bellaknoti the Comma Fairy, who kindly tidies up my chapters. Link to the beginning, for anyone joining us for the first time: www.fanfiction.net/s/6144534/1/Trouble_S
Title: Trouble & Strife: Chapter Fifty Four
Characters: today we have Alistair, Zevran, Philippe, Nathaniel and two new arrivals.
Rating: T
This chapter: 'Not her. Him.' Zevran races to save his love.
-oOo-
“Not. her.”
“Him.”
These three words, squeezed out painfully past paralysed vocal chords, brought Zevran’s world crashing down. He didn’t notice the helpless body splashing into the mud, couldn’t feel the cold driving rain, or hear the shouts of guardsmen and grooms trying to round up horses.
He’d believed the situation to be sewn up, had been smugly confident ever since the moment, yesterday, when he spotted the unobtrusive figure, moving quietly amongst the other servants with a graceful gait that was unmistakable. Crow training, not long out of apprenticeship. It was a joke in some cells; how virtually every Crow wound up back in training within a year or two, trying to unlearn what they had so painstakingly learnt. Re-discovering how to move like a normal person, how to occasionally bump into furniture, how to lose your balance slightly when carrying an awkward package.
He’d watched the young Crow carefully, making sure not to alert him. Too young and too untried to be here for him, and very unlikely to be working alone. A cell then, which could be here for the Arl, the Teyrn or the Queen. Further surveillance had verified it; the nondescript dark-haired young man showed no interest in the parts of the camp where Teyrn Fergus or Arl Wulff pitched their tents. In the royal camp he was seen time and again, carrying buckets or trays, looking busy.
He’d considered capturing the boy, drawing from him information on the rest of the cell and on their employer. But he had no idea as to the size of the cell, or even if this untried ragazzo would have all the information he needed. Crow Masters did not hand out more information than was required, and to disarm the one weapon that you know the location of will not turn a battle.
So he had waited, watched and put Captain Cedric on high alert. A complex rota of guards had ensured that more could be secreted in Maddy’s tent than was apparent, with enough going off duty at regular times to make the guard appear of a normal size. Kallian was frothing at the bit, sleeping in armour and with her blades so sharp she could practically slice the air in two.
Zevran pounded across the camp, negotiating slippery mud with dexterous ease. Philippe could have been sleeping in the royal pavilion these past two nights, should have been. It had been the prince himself who had rejected the notion, stating that such a change of routine would alert the assassins. He would not do anything to put his sister at more risk. As a sop he had accepted a single extra guard on his tent, just in case the fighting spilled over in his direction.
Three guards against an unknown number of Crows… Cuore di Andraste let me be in time.
-oOo-
Denerim looked much as it ever had, except shabbier, many buildings still obviously patched from the battle two years ago. The docks, however, were flourishing, with an inordinate number of both dwarves and elves bustling around. A puzzled frown creased her brow as she leant on the ship’s rail; elves had always worked the dock, usually in the very lowest possible capacity, but dwarves? Surface merchants, she assumed, but the number seemed excessive, as was the amount of guards surrounding the cargoes standing on the dock. The crease between her brow grooved a little deeper; some of those guards were wearing the King’s livery.
The gangplank was now in place, and the captain came to inform her that passengers were cleared to leave. He was Tevinter, and showed a level of deference to mages that seemed strange to her Ferelden-bred sensibilities, even after all this time.
“Are you ready, dear?”
The smaller figure beside her swallowed nervously, painfully, her blind eyes turning this way and that, tracking the sounds of the busy dock. This wouldn’t be easy for her, the biggest crowd they had encountered since they left Tevinter. Finally, she nodded with a short convulsive movement.
At the bottom of the gangplank an unexpected and familiar figure waited, bright hair tucked under the most atrocious hat Wynne had ever seen.
“Leliana.” She hugged the younger woman with affection. “How did you know-?”
“I saw the passenger manifests, and could not believe my eyes. Is this-?” The bard’s big blue eyes were round with wonder as she turned to the dwarven woman tucked tightly against Wynne’s side on the busy dock.
“Yes. Shayle, you remember Leliana?”
-oOo-
He thought it must be the rain that woke him, the hard, fast pattering of heavy drops on oiled canvas. There were shouts in the distance and the sound of distressed horses; this was nothing terribly unusual, storms always made the horses skittish.
But tonight was not a normal night, not by any means, and Philippe was surprised that he’d dozed off at all, lying tense and fully dressed on his campbed. This was their last camp before Denerim; if the attack that Zevran seemed so sure of was to come any time, it would come tonight. It had taken an enormous effort to bid his sister goodnight, to walk out of her tent and over to his own, as though nothing was wrong. He hadn’t dared look around, hadn’t dared show by look or action that anything was amiss. Maddy’s life may depend upon it. Only the knowledge of Kallian’s sharp blades and Zevran’s, the memory of the coiled, controlled violence in both their frames, reassured him. They would keep Maddy safe, while he - with barely enough skill as an archer to take down a stag – would have been mightily in the way, an additional burden they did not need.
A shadow passed across the tent flap, outlined briefly in the firelight. One of the guards perhaps, bored with such a static assignment, but Philippe tensed automatically, thinking that the flitting shadow was on its way to the big marquee in which Maddy and her guards waited. He tried to relax, tried to breathe more easily, ashamed of his nerves. He’d never thought of himself as a coward, but compared to these tough Fereldans, and even more so compared to Zevran, he felt like a babe in arms.
It was while thinking these thoughts, and attempting to force his breathing to a slower level, that Philippe heard a curious sound. It was unlike anything he’d ever heard before; a whisper of noise, too low to have registered if he were sleeping or even dozing. It took a moment for him to work out that it was a small sound close by, rather than a large noise further away. It took longer, altogether too long, for him to pinpoint exactly what that tiny rasping actually was.
Someone was cutting a hole in his tent.
-oOo-
The Warden compound was practically deserted when Nathaniel arrived, throwing his bags into the room that had previously been Leonie’s and was now his. He unstrapped his armour with practiced ease, lowering it onto the armour stand provided, and stretched, feeling his joints pop. A bath first, and then he must present himself at the palace. The last letter he’d received from Anders had been from Orzammar, describing Leonie’s Calling and containing a few coded references to the lyrium trade which he’d had difficulty deciphering. The next thing he’d received was an official invitation to a Landsmeet, with a scribbled note from Anders slipped inside the fancy scroll which merely said ‘bring Eddelbrek, we’ll explain when you get here’.
Politics. Despite his father’s best efforts, they appeared destined to dog his footsteps. Leonie had been grooming him to take over from her for nearly a year now, with far more emphasis on his role as Warden Commander than that of Arl of Amaranthine. That role she had expected him to fall into easily, despite his protestations that Thomas had been the heir, and he merely the spare who would have been expected to take over the Vigil’s garrison. The thought of his father’s fury, that his disappointing son should inherit after all, brought a tight internal smile, even now.
‘The Butcher of Denerim’, they called his father… He’d received enough confirmation over the last two years from independent sources to accept it, but despite this he still squirmed, hating the impact on the Howe name. This Landsmeet would not be easy; for the first time, he would be unable to fade into the background, allowing Leonie’s imposing presence to mask his. He must deal with the raised eyebrows, the disapprobation of the nobles at the fact that a Howe ruled Amaranthine once again.
I’m Warden Commander of Ferelden. The title of Arl is just some… peculiarity that comes along with it. Remember that, Nathaniel, and make sure they remember it also.
Having said that, he was prepared to vote on just about anything King Alistair wanted him to, unless it adversely affected the Wardens, provided it meant the Vigil no longer housed a small army of bloody mage children.
-oOo-
The guards were unconscious or dead, impossible to know which and Zevran had no intention of taking the time to find out.
The inside of the tent was chaos.
It was a sizeable space, not like the imposing marquee that a small army of servants erected for Maddy each night, but a roomy bell tent, big enough to hold a large wooden camp bed, a couple of chests and a small table and chair in reasonable comfort.
In the dark, it was difficult to pick out details, but if Zevran had to guess, he’d say that Philippe had thrown everything bar the bed at his attackers.
One was stationed at the door, holding off from the messy situation further in, and reacted immediately as Zevran entered. Standard Crow procedure, and Zev had been expecting it, so the dagger skittered over his armour and the arm that attempted to take him around the throat met only air. Zevran’s own dagger found its target; one down, and no time to waste in locating the others in the murky darkness and crashing furniture.
Despite the urgency he hesitated, unsure which of these flailing shadows might be Philippe. He didn’t dare call out, much though he longed to; a response from Philippe would pinpoint his position and the assassins would be on him in a second.
Crow discipline. Zevran released his breath silently and listened. It would only take a moment to be still, to separate the sounds in the room, to seek the familiar. Three bodies, one reeling clumsily, possibly injured. Of the other two… he responded immediately, instinctively, to the presence of another Crow, the footwork had been too precise to be anything else. As he spun to sweep the feet out from under his opponent, he could hear scuffling between the other two; it sounded as though one person was repeatedly hitting the other with a chair, which boded well – a Crow would be using knives, so it was likely the desperate aggression was originating from Philippe. Such clumsy defence would not work for long, indeed he was surprised it had worked at all, and so, with a sense finally of which struggling body was which, Zev ducked under a slashing swipe from his assailant, rolled and plucked a slender throwing knife from his belt, flinging it with practised precision into the adjacent combat.
A hoarse cry greeted this action; hoping that this would slow Philippe’s attacker for just long enough, Zevran turned his attention back to his own target, determined to put down him, or her, as quickly as possible.
-oOo-
“Wynne.” Alistair crushed her in a bear hug tight enough to draw a breathless protest. “Maker’s breath, am I glad to see you.”
“Alistair, please, you don’t know your own strength.” He wasn’t fooled one bit by her plaintive tone and landed a smacking kiss on the cheek of the woman who’d been more like a mother to him than any other he’d ever known.
“Yes I do, I just choose to ignore it.” He released her and watched affectionately as she settled her robes. He turned to the silent figure standing slightly behind her. “And is this really…? I mean… wow.” He was secretly dismayed by Shayle’s appearance; the conversion from golem back to dwarf must have been almost as horrific as her original encasement in stone. It seemed that every inch of her skin was scarred, shiny with burns and pocked with deep pits. Her eyesockets were hollow, not sealed over as one occasionally saw in an old warrior, but deep, dark and empty. He vaguely remembered hearing about how Caridin had made golems, about the molten lyrium poured into eyes and mouth; these were original scars then, not the work of the Tevinter mages who had reclaimed her.
“The Other Warden, who became King.” The words sounded strange in this soft ruined rasp, so unlike Shale’s booming tones. “Now I am just as squishy as you. Squishier, in fact.”
“Uh, yeah.” He’d never really known how to respond to Shale’s pronouncements; it seemed some things hadn’t changed, now that she was Shayle of House Cadash, not the golem Shale. He turned back to Wynne with some relief. “Wynne, I can’t believe how good your timing is. I have a mountain of things to tell you.”
The elderly mage raised an eyebrow, giving him that look, just as she used to. “Alistair, what have you been up to? Nothing bad, I hope?”
He grinned, reduced to schoolboy status and loving it. “Well, I’m married, for one thing, and going to be a father. Maker, it’s strange to say it, just like that. And, what else?” He ticked them off on his fingers. “I’ve stolen the lyrium trade out from under the Chantry, locked up Templars in Fort Drakon, made an enemy of the Grand Cleric, the Knight Commander and probably the Divine.” The disapproving purse of her mouth was just as he remembered. “Oh, and I’m stealing both the Chantry and the Circle off them.” Her face was a picture. “So pretty please, Wynne, my favouritist mage ever, will you be my First Enchanter?”
-oOo-
Philippe was certain that the only reason he still lived was the advantage he’d begun with: the short amount of time gained by realising that a knife was slicing through the thick canvas of his tent. It had provided just enough of an opportunity to shove a heavy chest into the legs of the first person through the hole. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the tent, he had one more slight, very slight, advantage over his attackers, and so, when the first one had sprawled full length over the knee-high obstruction, he’d been able to swing the wooden chair at the head of the second. A flare of light from the door signalled another assailant entering from that direction, and that was when Philippe realised that he was probably going to die here.
The following moments were crammed with frantic, uncontrolled action that would have made a trained fighter weep. He had no chance to get to his bow, and couldn’t imagine how he’d use it in such a confined space anyway. Furniture was his weapon of choice, and he wielded it with a desperation that seemed to confuse his attackers. It couldn’t last; already they were regaining control, circling him. Another flare of light from the door signalled the entry of a fourth assailant; it was too much.
Then everything changed, too quickly for Philippe’s confused mind to take in. A strangled groan and a thud near the door was almost immediately followed by the intrusion into the enclosed space of the newest arrival. Suddenly, inexplicably, the pressure was off him, one of the menacing shadows breaking off to deal with the new threat. They were all so quiet - his attackers and his saviour - no battle shouts, no threats, not even the harsh panting breaths that Philippe knew for sure were ripping from his own throat. He concentrated on braining the shape before him with a chair, hope swelling for the first time, and that hope soared when the faint glint of a knife flashed past him to bury itself in his attacker’s shoulder. He choked on a sob of relief, the breath of a word.
“Zev.”
The response was immediate, from two directions. The shape before him, too slender to be a man, stilled with the blade still buried in her shoulder and then moved, too fast for him to follow. And, at the same time, Zevran’s voice rose, clipped and urgent.
“To the door, go.”
He did as he was bid, eager to get reinforcements to help his love, but clumsy and slow compared to everyone else in the enclosed space. Zev and his opponent were whirling in a dangerous dance, while the woman closed in to assist her fellow assassin. There was so little space; he must clamber over the bed to get to the door…
What followed was blurry, confused, with everyone except him seeming in control of their bodies. The door flap was before him, but to get there he must slip past where three shapes whirled and ducked with lethal steel…
Philippe thought he’d made it, his hand lifting the flap of the door when it happened. Zevran flipped away from a slashing blade to land at his side and ducked. Something cold and wet hit Philippe on the right side of his face as he turned slightly, instinctively, towards his lover, his saviour.
The world was made of pain, clawing, screaming agony that bit into his face. Philippe’s hand was still clenched on the tent flap, and as he fell to his knees, unable to think, to speak, or even breathe, through the pain, he heard the canvas rip, flooding the tent with the light of campfires and torches. The last thing he saw through blurry, tear-filled eyes before merciful oblivion reached up to claim him was Zevran’s face of horror turning to murderous rage.
-oOo-
no subject
You are an evil, evil woman. And if you've killed off Philippe, I may have to get on a plane next week.
no subject
And btw, your Julian is adorable.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I do have to admit that Alistair gave me a good giggle though. Poor Wynne.
no subject
no subject
*puts on a grumpy schoolgirl face*
*melts*
*cries*
[Sebastian] PHILLIPE NOOOOOOOOOOO! [/Sebastian]
no subject
no subject
Lovely chapter as always, although the cruel ending made me curse your evilness.
Loved this, and I loved Alistair's huggle, too. That last paragraph was just pure torture. Another whole week of waiting. Ugh.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
But Shayle! Oh poor Shayle, I'm so happy to see her, but how will she adjust to it all - being squishy, small, blind, and the people around, she needs to relearn pretty much LIFE.
Hey. *suspicious squint* You're distracting us from the politics, aren't you. Something awful will happen there while we're all emotionally involved and not looking, right?
no subject
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6243112/1/First_Time_Ever_I_Saw_Your_Face
no subject
Also, oh wow that's your Shayle fic that I loved with burning love and here I thought 'Blind Shayle, heeey, I saw that somewhere... Strange coincidence or it's a fanon I never saw because I rarely read about dwarves?'
no subject
You can't just leave us hanging there!
no subject
And hello! You're new? Or just a serial lurker?
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
He's making big puppy eyes, isn't he? I just know it. And combining them with that boyish grin of his? Wynne won't have the heart to say "no". I feel for Shayle, but if she survived the process of becoming a golem, she'll survive this too. It'll be interesting to see how a traditionalist like Wynne works with the new regime.
And Philippe just got smacked in the face with acid. Hope Anders is up to the issue. Then again, I don't see a disfigured Philippe being any more willing to keep Zevran than he was before, other than the fact that he now realizes he can be a target and life is blooming short. I do believe that Antivan princess just lost the rest of her cell, not that there was any doubt about the matter, just saying.
Happily waiting for the next chapter...no pitchforks here!
no subject
Remember, Anders isn't with them, he's in Denerim. Maddy & Co are travelling without a healer.
no subject
no subject
Most writers seem to work on the basis, and I agree with them, that unless a wound is magically healed quickly, the healing will be far less effective.
Just sayin'