peopleofthedas | Apostates of Amaranthine chapter 108

Title: Apostates of Amaranthine: Chapter 108: "It gets me off the hook"
Characters: Anders/f!Amell (Maggie)
Rating: M/AO (this chapter T)
Word Count: around 2200
Summary: Unlikely hero Maggie Amell attempts to rebuild the Grey Wardens and deal with continuing threats from the darkspawn, while trying to fit into a world that's a far cry from the tower. All this while the Chantry seems to wait around every corner, eager to remind her and Anders just what they think of mages who manage to escape Circle control.
In this chapter: Maggie's secret weapon.

"You got a letter," Alistair said. "It came with my stuff." He looked embarrassed.

"What?" I asked. "Anders isn't sending me dirty letters, is he?" It wouldn't be the first time.

The king shook his head. "Why would he do that when he's here with you… you know what, don't answer, I don't want to know. I was only going to apologize for opening it by accident." He passed it over to me. "I was going through the stack and didn't notice it was for you. Until I couldn't read a word of it."

I glanced down, quickly skimming the page. Warden code. "I love the First Warden," I announced once done.

Alistair looked confused. "The same First Warden that said we should off you quietly if you were nuts?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "He's gone. As of now, apparently. New guy just started. Hanns… so I'm guessing he's from the Anderfels."

"So what does Hanns the New First Warden say?" Alistair asked. "Or can't I ask?"

I grinned, tossing the paper aside. "I wrote before I left," I explained, telling Alistair about how I temporarily stepped down. "See this," I pointed, "it's Warden code. A real pain in the ass, but useful." He was getting impatient. "That word there, it's Commander. So he is still calling me Commander."

"That word is two dozen letters long, how could it mean Commander if it's just a code? It isn't a unique language!"

"Ancient Arcanum," I explained. "Just another level of security. That isn't important, though." I grinned. "What is important is that I have been ordered to clear the way by any means necessary. He actually said, I quote, "I give you a free hand. If they stand in our way, give them the bloodbath they deserve."

"Really?" Alistair said. "He actually used the word bloodbath?"

"Yep," I replied, laughing.

"Wow. And they barely tried to get in during our Blight…"

"Ferelden was blocking them out. In this case, The Chantry is keeping us from aiding Orlais. The Empress asked him for aid."

Alistair's eyes widened. "Well, I had been wondering… when she pulled her men back it seemed like this could happen."

Anders came in at that moment, sitting next to me. "Good to know someone in that nation has half a head on their shoulders," he replied, before glancing at the letter. I gestured for him to go ahead. "Oh hey, it starts with 'My most cherished sister, Commander Margaret,'" he observed. "Good sign." A moment later Anders was laughing. "I cannot believe he said bloodbath. No wonder the new First seems to like you so much, he apparently shares your love of violence."

I rolled my eyes. "I tried to be a pacifist Grey Warden, but when I handed a genlock some daises he just bit my arm." I practically bounced in my seat, clapping my hands once in excitement. "Besides," I said, "we have more in common than that." Anders raised an eyebrow. "Last paragraph."

Anders shook his head, he actually looked somewhat disappointed. "What?" I asked.

"I don't know," he mused. "With all that's going on, making a mage the First… people will think we really are out to control everything." He sat down. "At the very least, it sends a pretty loud statement about what side they're on."

"We're not supposed to take sides," I said, frowning. I had just thought it to be a fun coincidence, excited to have some common ground with my superior when the last was so… well, creepy and distant. Anders made a good point, though.

He sighed. "Mags, I think that's just one of those things people say."

"Agreed," Alistair said. "We were hip deep in politics in the Blight, and no one said a thing about it."

"There have always been rumors the Wardens of Antiva had been involved in the Queen of Antiva's murder before the Steel Age began," Anders added. "When she wanted to scale back some of the privileges they were given after the Fourth Blight."

"I know that!" I said.

"Believe me, you're the last person I'd try and teach Warden history. Just pointing out, we've always poked around in politics. We run the Anderfels. Some say we even run Ferelden!"

"Hey now," Alistair said.

"Yes, brother?" Anders replied, jabbing Alistair's bicep with one finger. The bicep where, under several layers of his fancy king's clothing, you would see a griffon tattooed, the match to my own.

"Point," Alistair conceded.

"Well," I mused, "I guess I don't have to feel quite so guilty. That's good. I have wars to worry about." I paused, chuckling. "Wars. Maker. I never thought I would have to pluralize that word."

"This is like your birthday and First Day all rolled into one," Anders said. "You get two wars to fight in. Just like the blight and civil war all over again."

"Still," Alistair said after laughing at that, "it does seem odd the First would be so willing to go against the Chantry."

"The Chantry has already gone against us," I said pointedly. "We didn't strike first."

Alistair looked thoughtful. "I always wondered how they saw that… was it an attack on mages, or wardens?"

"Wardens," Anders and I replied at once. Alistair raised an eyebrow so I went on. "In the eyes of the law, in every nation in the world, I am a Warden. Not a mage, not even a human. Just a Warden." I shrugged. "We weren't in a position to properly put them down then. Now we are."

"By joining a war already in progress?" Alistair raised an eyebrow.

"Are you calling my brothers opportunistic?" I asked.

"Yes," came the reply. "But… the extra swords may be of use, so you won't hear me complain about that."

I spent a fairly relaxing day training. Everyone was on edge, knowing the battle was near, but for some reason the closer it came the better I felt.

Shortly before dinner I ran into Anders having a chat with another mage. He was clearly trying to talk her into something. "What's wrong?" I asked as I approached.

"Would you say our Wardens are, on the whole, prudes?" he asked. I just started laughing in response. "Right. But, despite that, I've cured more cases of Orlesian Pox and pirate's itch in the last month than I have in nearly twenty years as a Warden."

"Ew," was all I could think to say in response. "Don't tell me who, I don't want to accidentally picture it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Very mature. Maggie, with what, two exceptions… every single person you've been with could heal themselves if they ever got something. Not everyone has that luxury." After a moment he snickered. "Sorry, sorry, I'm trying to be the professional healer here. The whole thing is kind of funny, though."

"How is knowing half the men in this camp are covered in sores and rashes funny," I asked.

"I certainly don't find it funny," the women he had been talking with when I arrived said. "I'm going to think twice the next time one of them asks me if I want to go for a walk in the moonlight." She paused, looking at me. "Is that normal? Walking in the moonlight? I don't see the appeal, but I've had four men try the line on me!"

"Really?" I asked. "Why would they want to go stumbling around in the dark?" I thought about it for a moment longer. "The last time we took a walk in the moonlight we just got attacked by a bunch of bandits."

"Maker only knows," she said. "I cast a spell wisp once and he said I was 'killing the mood.' Mood? I thought I'd trip and break my neck!"

I laughed at that, not sure what mood would be conjured up by stumbling through the night. Maybe the getting-attacked-by-bandits mood?

"Well then, half the men are rotting from the waist down," I said after a moment. "Yeah… I can see that being a problem."

"See, the problem," Anders began.

"Is that they are idiots," she finished. I raised an eyebrow. "They catch it from the camp followers. Get healed… and go right back to fooling around with the camp followers!"

"So… why don't we heal the camp followers?" I asked.

"Thank you!" Anders said. "That's what I've been saying!"

"Really?" she asked. "We can… work on people who aren't with the army? I just thought it wasn't allowed. I mean, I'm here with the army."

"Do you really think I'd try and convince you to do something forbidden?" Anders asked, surprised.

"You do know they still tell stories about you in the tower, right?" she said by way of response.

He chuckled. "Fair enough. But this time I was serious."

I shrugged. "You can do whatever you want, you're a free woman. But you'll spend a lot less time working on the army if you cut off the source." She looked relieved and excused herself, walking towards the edge of camp.

"One problem solved," Anders said. "Well, a small problem. But it would be difficult if half our men stopped mid-battle to scratch themselves."

"It would," I agreed. "So why didn't you just take care of it?" Anders stopped looking at me like I was insane. "What?" I asked.

"Maggie," he said, "let's think about that. I'm one of the tallest people here, one of the only Wardens, I wear mage robes everywhere, there's a statue of me in Amaranthine, and I'm married to the most famous woman in Ferelden. I stand out."

"And?"

"And what would my darling wife have done if someone were to tell her, oh, I don't know… that they saw her very recognizable husband hanging around with a bunch of prostitutes at the edge of camp?"

"Ohhh," I said, immediately getting his point. "It would probably have involved fire. Or ice. Probably both." I thought about it for a moment longer. "And daggers. Maybe swords."

"And that's why I found someone else to do it," Anders said.

"I would probably have also salted the earth. Just on principle."

"Of course you would," he said. "Anyways, I also figured a woman would be a better choice. Seemed there was no polite way for some man to wander over there and say 'pardon me, ladies, but can all of you who experience a painful burning sensation when relieving yourselves please step over here and lift your skirts?'"

"There's a polite way for a woman to ask that?" I replied.

"Probably not," Anders admitted, "but it gets me off the hook." Rude or not, it did the job. Within days Anders and the other healers reported far fewer cases of disease.

And, as it turned out, just in time.

I was heading to the mess tent when a commotion broke out across the camp. I looked over to see a horse riding at full speed, nearly taking out several tents in the process. "Maggie!" the rider screamed as she jumped from the saddle, barely waiting for the horse to stop. Stumbling once, she regained her footing quickly and ran over. "Cousin!"

I raced over to meet her halfway. "Maker, Catherine, what is it?"

"They're almost here," she said.

"How long?"

"Nightfall," she said.

"And is everything in place?"

Catherine nodded. "Leliana is there. I ran into Zevran first, he's already started his part. We're ready as we'll ever be."

I nodded.

It didn't take long for everyone to get into place. This was what we had all been waiting for, after all.

I made one final stop. Standing in our tiny makeshift Chantry, I paused before one of the statues of Andraste. I could hear the soft voices of prayer all around me.

Dropping to my knees, I stared up at her calm face.

Tell me if I'm wrong, I thought. Give me a sign. I had only known victory, time and again. Part of me seems to have decided, on some level that it meant the Maker favored me. Or was, at the very least, indifferent to my actions. It was vanity, of course. Sometimes vanity had truth, though. My life hadn't been easy, but by any reasonable measure I should have been dead several dozen times over. There had to be a reason for that.

But part of me always worried I was wrong.

"Maker forgive me,"I whispered. "I only wanted to make things better." Pressing my forehead to the cool stones of her feet, I sighed. Forgive all my sins, of action and inaction. Give us victory. And if I've been wrong… please, don't let Ferelden suffer for my crimes.

Anders put a hand on my shoulder. "Maggie," he whispered. "We have to go."

I stood up, nodding.

I had already said goodbye to Alistair. It wouldn't do for the crowd to see me crying and hugging the king. There was nothing left to do but head to the front lines.

"If it ends quickly, we win," I said to the assembled captains. "Slowly… our odds aren't so good. So let's work fast." They chuckled before speaking in agreement.

We were in a line, blocking the exit of the pass. Mages lined the cliffs above us. I couldn't see anything, but I was starting to hear them.

They filed into the pass, heading towards us at a calm pace, no doubt expecting to rip through our lines.

Of course, they didn't know our secret. The secret weapon my army hadn't even learned until scant hours ago.

When the borders closed I had men trapped in Orlais. Wardens, and Alistair's troops. It wasn't difficult to get a message to them via Leliana. I hadn't even been thinking of Ferelden at the time, to be honest. I had been thinking of the Wardens.

"Make a way," I ordered them. "If the surface is closed, we have to find a new route."

The pass was, of course, above the Deep Roads… and no one in Thedas knew the Deep Roads like the Wardens. No one in Thedas knew the Deep Roads like my Wardens. Not even the shaperite in Orzammar had mapped out the twists and turns created by collapsing caverns and tunneling darkspawn in the centuries since abandonment. Those were known only to us.

We had the most accurate maps in Thedas, even among the order others would send envoys simply to copy what we had done.

Since they had been trapped in Orlais when the borders were closed, that was exactly where my Wardens had been. Along with the Ferelden troops they spent weeks and then months clearing the roads, ensuring their stability, mapping out routes. They built barriers and dug new passages. They cast warding spells and slaughtered the darkspawn.

They had created one of the safest sections of the deep outside Orzammar. Created it just so the Wardens could enter Orlais should the borders remain closed.

But why not use them for something else in the meantime?

Catherine and Leliana had been reporting of their progress, and we were ready. When the Templars looked through the pass, they looked at only a portion of the army. While the Chantry marched east, into the pass, a third of my men marched West, deep underground. As the last of the Chantry army filed into the pass, the troops of Ferelden climbed back into the light and marched up right behind them.

There would be no escape.

Apostates of Amaranthine chapter 108

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