Work Text:
Wesley held Aveline’s hand until the light faded from her eyes and her fingers went limp. Behind him there was the low murmur of conversation between the apostate and the demon who wore the body of an old woman.
“North,” the apostate, Garrett, said clearly, as Wesley brushed a stray lock of bright red hair from Aveline’s brow. They’d planned to go north after the battle, to the Amaranthine Chantry, or possibly even across the Waking Sea to the Free Marches. “Anywhere but Orlais,” Aveline had said with a laugh. “Not with this name hanging around my neck.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” the demon said, its voice carrying on the breeze. “Unless you fancy losing even more people to the Darkspawn.” He squeezed Aveline’s lax fingers and tried to summon the prayer to speed her to the Maker’s side, but couldn’t push the words past the knot in his throat. Ashes we were, he thought, then had to close his eyes against the threat of tears.
He opened them when a hand touched his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Garrett said. “But we have to go.”
Wesley turned his head and looked up. There was a smear of blood on the apostate’s cheek broken by tear tracks; had probably been crying even as he fought, he thought and suddenly his own tears didn’t seem so shameful. He nodded. “Very well. Safe journey to you.”
The mother, Leandra, made small sound of distress and said, “You can’t mean to stay. Please, come with us.”
The other one, the young warrior with the heavy sword, looked up from wiping black blood from it and said, “Why? He’s just another mouth to feed and one that’ll go running to the first Chantry we see. Besides,” he said as he gave the blade one last swipe with a rag, “with that arm he’s no good in a fight. He’ll just slow us down. Let him stay if he wants.”
With a frown, Garrett said, “His wife saved Mother, Carver. Show some respect.”
“I respect her just fine,” Carver said, then stood up and slung the sword onto his back. “But now she’s dead, just like Bethany’s dead, just like everyone at Ostagar and Lothering is dead, and we’ll be dead too if we don’t leave.”
“The boy is right,” the demon said. “If you want my assistance, we must go. Now.”
Garrett sank to one knee next to him and placed a hand on Wesley’s. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice somber. “But staying here won’t bring her back, won’t accomplish anything except your death too. Is that what she’d want?”
The pain in his arm throbbed in time with his pulse and made him dizzy when he shook his head. “No,” Wesley said. “She wouldn’t want that. But I can’t leave her like this, I can’t let her be carrion for those foul creatures.”
“Nor I Bethany,” Leandra said, her voice thick with emotion.
“There are stones,” Garrett said after a glance around the plateau. “We could build a cairn.”
“No time,” the demon said impatiently. “Stand aside and let me take care of it.”
Wesley allowed Garrett to pull him to his feet and away, watched with horrified fascination when the demon became a dragon again, and thought for one awful moment when it opened its mouth that it was going to eat the bodies. Then a roar of white hot flame shot out of its mouth and poured over their still figures. He caught one last glimpse of Aveline’s profile, glowing like the sun, and then had to turn away from the heat. When he turned back, all that remained were ashes.
Ashes we become, he thought, and when the demon said, “Now, shall we go?” he let Garrett sling his good arm over a shoulder and help him down the path. East, toward Gwaren.
*
He remembered the journey mostly in fragments; stumbling along in the demon’s wake with either Garrett or Carver’s shoulder under his arm, Leandra changing the bandage on his wound, her frown of concern clear despite the dark night and inadequate fire.
“It’s infected,” she said to Garrett, who shrugged helplessly and said, “You know I can’t heal, Mother.”
The demon fixed a glittering gaze on him and said, “I might be able to help,” then laughed when he moaned out a refusal. “A potion, then,” it suggested, “and perhaps he won’t lose it.”
Garrett helped him sit up and held a small flask to his lips and said, “It’s one of mine,” when Wesley hesitated. He drank but felt ill with fever when he woke the next day.
“It’s not the taint,” the demon said, its eyes unblinking. “But it will kill you just as effectively. Sure you don’t want my help?”
“Avaunt, demon,” he said weakly.
It merely laughed and went to rouse the others.
“We may have to take it,” Carver said sometime later.
Wesley looked around; he hadn’t noticed that they’d left the flatlands and had been slowly climbing. He blinked when Garrett said, his voice low and hard, “We are not going to take his arm. The potion is helping.”
“Not enough, and not with the fever. Touch his hand, Garrett, he’s burning up.”
“And having a raw stump will be so much better. We’re not cutting his arm off, Carver. Drop it.”
“I don’t know why you care,” Carver said, a sullen edge to his voice. “One less Templar in the world isn’t going to make you cry.”
“I’d do it for anyone,” Garrett said, “Templar or no. So would Bethany. So would Father.”
Wesley swayed and raised his good hand to his forehead. He couldn’t feel a fever, but his skin felt tight and waxy, like he’d been dipped in tallow. “It doesn’t matter,” he said dully. “I’ll never use a sword again.”
“There are things other than using a sword,” Garrett said, his voice firm. “We’ll have no more talk of it unless the infection spreads.”
Days passed, but he didn’t realize they’d crossed the Southron HIlls, just registered that they’d stopped somewhere with trees when the demon bade them farewell. He blinked when it turned into a dragon again and watched it fly away, then he fell into his bedroll and didn’t move until Garrett roused him for another potion.
“Where,” he began, and Garrett brought the flask to his lips and said, “The Brecilian Passage. Gwaren’s not too far. We’ll find a healer for you there.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly after he drank. “I’m a Templar. I would do my duty and take you to the nearest Circle if I were able.”
Garrett eased him back down onto his bedroll, then said, “I saw you when that orgre charged. I saw you shout and try to draw it away from Bethany.”
“It didn’t work.”
“No,” Garrett agreed. “But you would have died to save her.” He put a hand on Wesley’s forehead and frowned, then wiped his face free of expression before lightly saying, “Besides, I said it before; I’d do it for anyone. There’s been too much death as it is. Now try and go back to sleep.”
*
There was no Circle in Gwaren, and no healing mage stationed at the Chantry, and no shelter to be found. The grizzled Templar at the door had been sympathetic but unyielding, “There’s no room, you understand. No food and no supplies. We’re already full of refugees and more arriving every day.”
“But he’s a Templar,” Carver said.
“Not with that arm,” the Templar said. “Not anymore. I’m sorry,” he said directly to Wesley. “Where were you stationed?”
“The Denerim Chantry.”
“Maybe they’ll have something for you there,” the Templar suggested. “Best I can do for you is put a word in at the docks and get a ship to make some room in the hold for your group.” His gaze rested on Garrett’s staff and he said, “That doesn’t look like Circle issue. Is he your charge?”
“Yes,” Wesley answered faintly. Why am I lying, he wondered even as he continued, “Battle mage. At Ostagar.”
“Then you saw the Grey Wardens abandon King Cailan,” the Templar said, and spat at his feet. “Faithless bastards.”
Carver frowned and parted his lips, as if to protest, but Garrett quelled him with a hard look and said, “Quite. You said you knew of a ship?”
“The Spritely Lass. Headed to Kirkwall, but it stops in Denerim for water. Tell the Captain Ser Daffyd at the Chantry sent you.”
“Thank you,” Wesley said.
Away from the chantry Garrett said, “Battle mage?”
“Oh yes,” Wesley said. “Terribly dangerous. Wiped out an entire battalion of Darkspawn. Thank Andraste there’s a Templar to keep you in hand.” He laughed weakly at this and swayed when Garrett stopped short.
“Maker,” he said. “You’re burning up again. Let’s get you to the tavern and I’ll see what I can do to find a healer.”
While Carver and his mother went to the docks to secure passage, Garrett left Wesley on a bench and paid an urchin a copper to keep an eye on him.
Wesley leaned against the wall and tried to stay awake. He must have dropped off, since he woke to Garrett’s hand on his shoulder and a muttered, “Come on, just out to the stables.”
There, in the dim light he saw an old woman sitting on a bale of straw. “A hedge witch,” he said to Garrett.
“I asked all over town and she’s the only healer willing to help a Templar. It’s her or you let Carver realize his dreams of playing field surgeon.”
“Don’t worry, my dear,” the old woman said. “A handsome boy like you deserves to be held with two strong arms.”
It was only when Garrett shook his head that Wesley realized the witch had been talking to him. “He’s not - never mind. You can heal him?”
She approached Wesley and took his right hand in both of hers, then closed her eyes and sent a faint blue sphere of energy over his arm. “I can knit the flesh,” she said, “but it won’t undo the damage to the nerves.”
“And the fever?” Garrett asked.
She shook her head. “I can ease it, but the fever serves a purpose. Best to let it run and burn the infection out. Now then,” she said as she opened her eyes and held his with a firm gaze, “this may be uncomfortable.”
The blue light enveloped his arm, then sank into it and he reflexively tried to jerk it away when he felt the torn muscle inside move.
“None of that,” she said sharply and jerked her chin at Garrett. “Hold him still, please.”
Garrett stepped behind him and wrapped an arm around his chest while his free hand gripped just above the injury. “”I know it’s unpleasant,” he murmured in Wesley’s ear, “but it will just be a moment.”
Wesley set his teeth and ignored every instinct that clamored for him to lash out with a cleansing blow of power, whether against the apostate holding him still or the one digging at his torn muscles, he wasn’t sure.
When the witch scowled at his wound, then gave it a hard squeeze, he was ashamed that he let out a cry at the gout of pus and blood that oozed forth.
“That’s better, eh?” she said. “Get the bad out and let the good in.” She squeezed again, and Wesley closed his eyes and let his head fall onto Garrett’s shoulder as she worked. This time, when the muscles moved together as they knit he held perfectly still, jaw clenched.
“Done,” the witch finally said and released his hand.
The last of the pain faded as he opened his eyes, and when he looked at where the wound had been there was only scar tissue, still pink and raw. He gave an experimental squeeze of his hand, wasn’t terribly surprised when the last two fingers wouldn’t close all the way.
“There’s some back from Ostagar with less,” the witch said sharply, as if he’d found her skill lacking.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I am grateful. Truly.”
There was a clink of coins as Garrett opened his purse. “Thank you,” he said as he handed over a few coppers. “I don’t suppose you have potions for the fever? We’re taking ship and I’m out of ingredients.”
The witch shook her head. “None to be had for love or money, my dear. Not with the refugees and wounded soldiers coming in. Dark days ahead for us all, I’m afraid.”
*
The hold of the Spritely Lass was dark and stank of fresh tar and old fish. Leandra had met them at the dock, and then lead them down the narrow steps to the corner that Carver had staked out as theirs with an aggressive stare and hand on his sword hilt.
“You’ll be glad of it when we’re out of the harbor and the weather gets rough,” he said, when Garrett wanted them closer to the hatch and the occasional draft of fresh air.
Wesley sank onto the floor and leaned against the wall of the hold, feeling as weak as if he’d run drills in his full kit all day.
“I thought you said he’d been healed,” Carver said. “Why does he still look like shit?”
“Language, Carver,” Leandra said, as she knelt next to Wesley and put a soft, cool hand on his cheek, then gave Garrett a questioning look.
“It’s nothing,” Wesley said as he closed his eyes. “A bit of rest and I’ll be fine.”
The hold, meant for cargo, did not prove accommodating to passengers, especially in the quantity the captain took on. Families, or rather the battered remnants of them, filled the low ceilinged hold and soon the smell of stale sweat competed with the tar and fish. “And we haven’t even started with the privy buckets yet,” Carver said sourly. “Or the vomit,” as the dog moaned when the ship rocked on a heavy wave.
“Always such a ray of sunshine, Carver,” Garrett said. “Finding the positives in any situation.”
“No, that would have been Bethany,” Carver said with a bitter twist of his mouth.
“Stop it, both of you,” Leandra snapped. “Must you bicker like children even after all that we’ve lost?”
Aveline, Wesley thought and the weight of his grief closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was laying down, his head pillowed on a strong thigh, a calloused but gentle hand on his forehead. “Aveline,” he murmured and let himself drift back into sleep.
The fever finally broke when they were two days out from Kirkwall. His recollections of the journey were haphazard and fever tinged; no one single event, but rather a series of impressions. Carver restless and angry, Leandra withdrawn and quiet, and Garrett a soothing voice in the dark, a firm hand pressing a cup of water or a potion to his lips.
By the time they docked, he felt clear headed but weak and light, so that when they stepped up onto the deck he almost felt as if he might float into the sky were it not for Garrett’s steadying grip.
As they made their way down the dock, Leandra said, “Once we get to the estate we’ll get you a proper healer.”
“And a bath,” Carver muttered. “What? I meant for all of us.”
The statues hanging from the cliffs loomed over them, casting twisted shadows into the agitated crowd gathered at the gates. At first Wesley thought the shouting and waving were exuberant greetings, but once they were closer it became clear the emotions fueling the refugees were desperation and anger.
“That looks ugly,” Carver said. “Shall I make a path for us?”
“No.” Garrett craned his neck, then said, “There’s a Guardsman at the gate. He seems to be the bottleneck. Let’s go have a word.”
Guardsman Wright listened to their story with thinly veiled impatience. “Look,” he finally said, “Relations or no, it’s not my decision to let you in. Go talk to my Captain in the courtyard.”
Captain Ewald was a bit more receptive, but once it became clear they had no money for bribes, his eyes hardened. “I can ask after your brother, Mistress, but the only Gamlen I know of is a worthless layabout with less than two coppers to rub together.”
“What about our companion?” Garrett asked.
Ewald gave Wesley a disinterested look. “Templar business is none of mine. If the Knight Commander doesn’t want him it’s nothing to do with me.”
“You’ll stay with us, of course,” Leandra said when they’d moved back to the shadows of the walls.
Wesley shook his head. “I’ve imposed on your generosity too much already. I shall seek out the Knight Commander and perhaps-”
“Buy your way in with a captive apostate?” Carver asked.
“Carver!”
Wesley held up a hand. “It’s a fair question, Mistress, as I’ve done little to commend myself. In answer to your question, Carver, no, that was not my plan.”
“Then what?”
“It’s true I can no longer wield a sword. But I might still serve at the Chantry, if they would have me.”
“And if they won’t?”
He turned and met Garrett’s steady gaze. “Then I shall have to make do elsewhere. Regardless, I must at least make my report to the Knight Commander. After that, we shall see.”
*
An older Templar named Ser Karras took him through the gates and bade him wait in the inner yard. “Meredith is a busy woman, but I’ll see if she can give you a moment,” he said, then added, “Any of them Tranquil bother you, just give ‘em a cuff and they’ll go about their own business.”
Wesley stood where he had been left. None of the Tranquil approached him, or even seemed to register awareness of him, but continued their tasks in placid calm.
Karras returned and said, “She’ll see you,” then beckoned him up the steps and into a dim corridor.
“You have quite a few Tranquil here,” Wesley said as they walked.
“Not enough, if you ask me,” Karras growled. “Don’t know what it was like Ferelden, boy, but here in Kirkwall the best mage is a Tranquil one. This door.”
The Knight Commander was at her desk when he entered the office, and finished reading the report in her hands before looking up with a piercing blue gaze. “My Knight says you wish to report to me. Speak.”
Keeping himself at attention, Wesley said, “Wesley Vallen, of the Denerim Chantry.”
“Ferelden, are you? How did you come here?”
“I was injured when the Horde spread from Ostagar. A family from Lothering gave me aid and took me with them when their home was destroyed.”
A frown drew her fine brows together. “Refugees?”
“They have family here, Ser, and a house.”
She shook her head, and said, “That’s what they all claim. As a result, my city is overrun with them, and their dogs, all looking for someone to take care of them. Maker, I’d ship them all back if we but had the boats to do it. But that’s nothing to do with you. Tell me of what happened in Ferelden.”
He relayed what he knew, the rout at Ostagar, the loss of the king, the growing hordes of darkspawn. Then, reluctantly, he spoke of the shipboard gossip, the rumors of civil war, factions splitting in the Bannorn, the bounty on the heads of any Gray Wardens remaining in Ferelden.
“This I already know,” she said. “What happens in Ferelden is beyond my control, and if they’d stop sending us their cast offs it would also be beyond my care.” Her gaze sharpened. “You said you were injured. Have you recovered?”
“As much as I ever shall, Ser.”
“You can still wield a sword? No? Pity.” And there was perhaps a trace of it in her voice as she said, “My Circle is kept on a tight leash, and my Templars must be fit to fight, even those on Chantry duty. I’m sorry, Wesley Vallen.”
It was a clear dismissal, so he left the office and followed Karras back to the gates. They crashed closed behind him with a clang of finality and he fought back a brief wave of despair, then squared his shoulders and made his way back to where the Hawke family waited.
*
It was a weakness in himself that he despised, but he allowed them to convince him to throw his lot in with theirs. “But I will not be beholden to you,” he said at last. “I must earn my own way.” It was a small sop to his pride, made even smaller when Gamlen Amell made it clear their only entrance to the city would be bought with indentured servitude.
“What can he do?” Gamlen asked bluntly, and snorted when Wesley suggested scribing, or translating texts. “That’s what priests and those creepy damn Tranquil are for, and the Chantry doesn’t have to pay them.” He gave Wesley an evaluating stare. “Feed him up a bit and give him a wash and I suppose he’d be pretty enough. I could see if Madame Lusine-”
“Gamlen!” Leandra said in a horrified gasp, taking his meaning at the same time as Wesley, who found himself instinctively reaching for a sword he could no longer use.
“Spare me your delicate sensibilities, Leandra. Things have changed in Kirkwall and our name means nothing. If you want to bring in your pet Templar, he has to do something.”
“Wesley will earn his keep,” Garrett said in a hard voice. “But not in a brothel.”
Gamlen stepped back raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he said. “I see which way the wind blows. Fine. Go ahead and convince my contacts he’s worth the price of the entry fee, if you can.”
The mercenary would take Carver, had doubts about Garrett and flat out refused Wesley. “The last thing my unit needs is a crippled choir boy,” he said. “You can stay,” he said to Carver.
“I stay with my family,” Carver said flatly.
“Very commendable,” the mercenary said, his voice dry. “Come back when you’re hungry enough to slip your familial bonds.”
The smuggler, Athenril, focused on Garrett. “We try to keep things quiet and unobtrusive,” she said. “Fighting and bloodshed are a last resort, or to make a point. Mages are good for taking care of things quiet like. But I’m not seeing the benefit to having an ex Templar clanging about the city. He’s not exactly common in that armour.”
“You want a mage?” Garrett asked. “Let me guess; your competitors also have at least one.”
She raised a brow. “And your point is?”
“He can nullify their magic. How else do you think Templars keep unruly mages under control?”
“Hmmm.” She crossed her arms and tapped a finger to chin, then fixed Wesley with a hard stare. “What’s to keep you from running to the Chantry or the Knight Commander if you don’t like how we happen to conduct our business?”
Garrett answered before he could. “The fact that you’ll be supplying him the lyrium he’ll need to put down your rival’s mages.”
She pursed her lips, then shrugged and said, “Fine, I can live with that. Go take care of that double dealing merchant in the Gallows like we talked about and you’re in. All of you.”
“How did you know?” Wesley asked later when they’d wearily settled in at Gamlen’s small, shabby home in Lowtown.
“About the lyrium? My father told us it’s one of the few bargaining chips we’d have should we ever fall into Templar hands. We always carry a few vials, just in case.”
“I see,” Wesley said. “It hadn’t even occurred to me that I hadn’t felt the lack of it. You’ve been very kind.”
He felt Garrett shrug next to him on the cot they shared. “It was just enough in your potions to keep you from the sickness. But we were starting to run low. Athenril would have been my first choice anyway; easier to get contraband from a smuggler, but I knew Carver wanted to try the mercenaries.”
“I can still join them,” Carver said from the other cot, irritation clear in his voice.
“After our year is up, you can do anything you like, I suppose,” Garrett replied.
“Something to look forward to,” Wesley said. “A new beginning for all of us.”
end