Mateo hunched, wrestling with the reins. Laudine lay as flat as she could on the bench. Genitivi and Philliam had nowhere to go.
One of their four driving horses—the closest on the left—whinnied in pain as an arrow suddenly arced down into its shoulder, rendering its left foreleg instantly immobile. Its head dipped below the pole that tethered it to its running partners, pulling the team off their track.
Mateo wrapped the reins around his forearm and heaved backward, hauling the animal up for a fleeting moment. He grabbed his blade, swinging the heavy dao with one hand, cutting straps to bridle and saddle in one clean motion, the last time “clean” would be appropriate. He released the reins and the horse fell back down over the incapacitated leg. It immediately collapsed left, snapping its neck on the stones of the Imperial Highway.
The coach righted, and the remaining team of three continued pulling. They didn’t lose much speed, but that wasn’t the only arrow to find a target.
Philliam wrote as long as he could. It was the only thing he’d ever been good at. Finally, on this stupid quest, there was a slim chance that this useless skill that couldn’t build a house, grow a crop, or appease a father could, in this one specific circumstance, help save the world.
Philliam looked up to see an arrow in Genitivi’s chest.
No, he thought, that wasn’t fair. The old man had done so much more than him, he deserved better than an arrow in the lung, dripping blood from the fletching.
From the fletching?
“Oh, child,” said Genitivi.
If Philliam had looked down, he’d have seen a stain growing on his armor. If he could’ve seen behind himself, he’d have had witty concerns about the matching hole in his back. Antaam bows were very strong.
He didn’t see either of these things. He slumped sideways as Laudine screamed. The air above them rippled in response.
Far behind, Rasaan lowered her bow and squinted through the dust. The heavy Antaam wagons had been steadily gaining for an hour, and with her prey down to three horses, they would quickly close the remaining distance.
Rasaan signaled for another volley.
A boulder from nowhere arced toward them. It bounced once, throwing shrapnel, before reducing the soldier on Rasaan’s left into a stain.
Laudine screamed again. Another stone appeared from nothing and was hurled into the darkness. It flew wide, but showered the highway with more debris. The Antaam wagon slowed, losing ground, weaving to avoid further volleys.
Rasaan calmly wiped a mist of blood from her horns.
“The mage’s hands are mine,” she said.
Mateo used the brief reprieve to cut a second horse free. Despite the noise around him, he’d noticed its rhythm was off. A sign it was lame, or soon would be. Rather than risk another stumble, he backed the lead animals off for a second, cut straps, and slapped the horse’s haunch so it stepped right. Once clear it immediately slowed, clattering to stop at the side of the highway, lifting a rear leg.
Mateo kept the coach straight and fast, but they weren’t winning this race.
Laudine was sweating, breathing hard, and shoving paper against the wound in Philliam’s chest. Genitivi added what weight he could as his own strength waned.
Philliam smiled. In his head, he’d pulled the arrow from the old man, hurling it over his shoulder, back at the archer. He imagined the story it would be in the guilds, the irony of how his heroics would allow Genitivi to continue unabridged. As shouts from Laudine became a hollow wind, he saw his contribution to academics finally recognized. As his pupils grew dark, and were overwhelmed by the stars above, he saw the pull quote on the epic he would write: A triumphant validation of Philliam, a Bard! Through him, our world has new focus.
“New focus…” He trailed off.
Genitivi slumped across Philliam. He seemed elsewhere, muttering the long details of his work studying Tevinter architecture. The wonder of the Imperial Highway, the stones that marked distance, and the pillars below.
“The pillars below…”
Rasaan drove on. Arrows rained down.
Laudine reeled. Each use of magic had been desperate, erratic, taxing her body. She covered her ears, but her blurred senses, the quirk of her unique perspective, wouldn’t let her escape. She saw the last words of her peers, felt their stillness, heard her own fear.
And then, as often happened, there was insight.
“Focus through the pillars below,” she said.
Laudine stood. She looked ahead, past Mateo. The Imperial Highway stretched on like a Genitivi treatise, markers on the short sidewalls every hundred yards, the tip of each supporting a pillar below. She looked back, past the lame horse coming to a stop, to the white-haired hatred that followed them.
And she focused.
Formerly Sister Laudine reached into the Fade not above but below, and pulled stone into existence inside the road, where it already was. This was not possible, and the red that trailed from her ear showed the effort. She paid it no mind. She was fueled by other blood—Genitivi’s on the arrow, and Philliam’s on her hands.
“Rasaan of the Antaam, you will feel this,” she said with unflinching honesty.
Stone merged with stone and the Imperial Highway exploded beneath their small coach. If they were stationary, they would have immediately fallen to the Silent Plains below, to the ash and sand of a thousand deaths in that spot alone. Instead, Laudine’s rage sent them upward six feet, and their forward momentum carried them out of the hole she had willed.
The two remaining horses tried to find their feet. The right landed steady, pulling. The left fell over its own legs, falling under the pole that bound them together, shattering it. The doomed animal whinnied painfully, and the coach dipped, though still partially airborne.
Mateo leapt forward, cutting straps again and then wrestling the reins right. They plowed forward, rubble moving with them, pushing the bulk of the fallen horse. The front axle cracked sickly at the strain. They wouldn’t be able to keep their previous speed, even if that was possible with only one horse leading a coach built for four.
They wouldn’t need to.
Laudine fell to the bench, staring back at the results of her work. She’d rent the highway just before one of the massive stone pillars. And though they were limping, the road ahead remained solid, the section supported at both ends. But behind them, the rumble continued. Massive slabs of stone fell, widening the hole, swallowing the forward wave of their pursuers.
Rasaan was again faster than her soldiers. She barked the order to stop, then leapt backward when it wasn’t going to happen. Her wagon launched into darkness, and she skidded after it, leaving a red stain of hardened skin on the road behind her. She caught herself on the edge, a jagged, violent stop that left her half hanging amid fractured stonework. Below her, the crushed remains of her kith, their blood flowing into the ash of ages.
She hauled herself up, and watched the coach and her prey fade into the distance. She stood silent, staring, growing cold in the failure of the moment.
Then she turned with resolve, and her Antaam turned with her.
Mateo counted sixty pillars, then brought the coach to a gentle stop. He stepped down to the cold stones and walked to the side of the box. Philliam and Genitivi stared at him, caught in a hopeful pause.
He reached across and closed their eyes.
Laudine was leaning back in the box, watching impassively. He placed a hand on her searing forehead and saw the blood from ear to collar.
She looked … well, she looked like nothing. The effort she had expended had come at a cost. The untrained part of her that had reached across the Veil, done the impossible, was gone. A tear rolled from one eye, but as it reached her lip there was no quiver, no indication of what had inspired it. She seemed calm. Relaxed. Tranquil.
Mateo shook his head. He placed a blanket around Laudine’s shoulders and took the bundle of books and pages from among his three charges. He secured it carefully on the bench and wa
lked to the front of the cart.
The remaining horse snorted at his approach, shaking its head.
Mateo smiled softly and removed the broken poles and straps that had previously joined four bridles. He tossed them off the side of the Imperial Highway, noting the short time it took to whuff into the strangely purple sands below.
He looked back at the satchel of books set at the corner of the coach.
A week later he’d deliver the package to Lord Varondale, then find his way back to Rivain.
A month later it would be delivered to another writer—Tethras, or something—and plans would be made.
A year later, nations would stand, and tremble.
Mateo rehitched the remaining horse, centering it so the weight of the coach was balanced. He looked into its dark eyes, patted its head, and climbed back into his seat.
Blood mingled between the rails of the coach box. A final collaboration. Formerly Sister Laudine hummed an Orlesian lullaby to the space where Phlliam and Genitivi had been. Tuneless, as though perfectly remembered, but with no feeling in the melody.
And the coach drove on, wheels beating rhythm out of the highway stones, long into the night.
* * *
“That is how you end it?”
Philliam, a Bard!, Brother Genitivi, and formerly Sister Laudine sat at a corner table in the Hilt, a roaming public house that was—according to this month’s dice roll—on the coast of Rivain. Around them, Mateo’s Lords of Fortune comrades slapped backs and tipped back. Pages were laid out between them. Some ancient, some new and under scrutiny.
Genitivi leaned in his chair, tapping the side of his ale with a judgmental ring finger. Philliam felt the scholar’s critiques like Antaam arrows.
“It is quite dour.”
“It’s cautionary,” said Philliam, waving the quill in his hand. “More punch than ‘Mateo shoved a stick in the lift works.’”
“I think it’s rather touching,” said Laudine, idling a finger around the lip of her glass. She exchanged glances with a female Qunari-Rivaini seer at the bar. “Cathartic,” she added.
“A long road about a long road,” grumbled Genitivi. “You certainly took some liberties.”
“It’s about tone,” said Philliam. “We can’t say what we found, that’s for the generals. This is for the people.” He looked down at his pages. As always, editorial comment made him doubt himself.
“I don’t think you quite captured the Silent Plains,” said Laudine, still distracted.
“More evocative.” Philliam nodded, taking the easier note. “I’ll stress they were ‘strangely’ purple.”
“Like your writing,” said Genitivi, hiding a smirk with his drink.
Philliam looked up, hurt, then smiled as Laudine failed to stifle a snort-laugh that was entirely off-brand.
Genitivi paused, thoughtful.
“Are we all dead, then?” he asked.
“Not in this draft,” said Laudine. “At least, I’m not. And Mateo.”
“Ah, but you can’t be hurt anymore,” said Philliam. He placed his hand to his forehead in mock anguish. “And our brave delver will forever regret that he couldn’t save us.”
A chorus of cheers erupted from the bar as Mateo drained a pitcher of cider while standing on his hands.
“See,” said Philliam, shaking his head sadly, “a broken man.”
Genitivi tapped one of the ancient pages on the table.
“But we continue,” he said. “Write our warnings as someone else?”
“For a time.” Philliam shrugged.
“That Rasaan will chase us,” said Laudine. “And her strange Antaam. I’d rather change my name than have her take it.”
“Easy for you to say, I have decades more with mine.”
“We can have other names,” said Philliam. “Becoming other people is kind of the job.”
“But it was such a good name,” said Genitivi, gesturing with flair. “Fer-di-NAND gen-i-TEEE-vi.”
Philliam rolled his eyes over to Laudine. “Told you we should’ve brought the Dowager.”
“Well,” said Genitivi, “perhaps her rates can be discussed.” He winked.
Philliam’s quill and jaw both dropped.
“As you said, child, we can have other names.”
Another history revised. Their third or fourth of the night.
“Well,” said Laudine, recovering slightly faster than Philliam, “five scarves fluttered in shock out of five.”
Philliam raised a glass.
“You really are the best, old man.”
Genitivi stood with his peers.
“Don’t you forget it.”
They clinked their glasses, returned to their edits, and argued into the night, in search of the perfect ending. Around them, the bar served on, the coast lapped at historic sands. And in distant places blades were sharpened, and wolves walked in dreams.
And then …
* * *
“And then? And then what? We were done, child. Restrain yourself.”
“If we’re inventing, let’s invent. Serials are where the money—ow!”
“I warned you both.”
“Fine. Point taken.”
“Quite literally.”
HEROLD HAD THE PLAN
RYAN CORMIER
Bharv never quite learned the trick to running, despite his years of practice. Every branch along the riverbank slashed his sweaty face; his boots hooked under each tree root. He stumbled along on stocky legs, certain he’d hear the hounds call and arrows whistle at any moment. He was panting, each step forward a struggle. Bharv looked over his shoulder—as though that ever went well—and grinned at the empty trail. He even snickered. Then he put a boot wrong and tumbled ass over beard, sliding into the reedy muck of the Minanter River. He stopped. Held his breath. Swamp water streamed down his face. Bharv’s heart tried to leave his chest. Nothing. No Starkhaven guards. None of the tournament knights either. Given his wounds, those bastards really hated thieves. Or perhaps they simply didn’t like Lords of Fortune. Could go either way, in his experience.
The dwarf clawed back up to the dry riverbank and looked around. Not bad. He’d slammed his face into the ground roughly where he wanted to be, with a hidden view of the rendezvous point. He winced, flopped down, and pulled up his shirt. The cut across his belly wasn’t deep, but it stung like the blade was still digging around in there. With the job crashed, Bharv didn’t know who got killed, who was grabbed, or who might squeal. If the rendezvous point filled with knights screaming about brigands, he’d know a little more. Something poked against his side and he discovered an arrow lodged in his coat, stuck through a wide pocket. He’d spent so much luck escaping Starkhaven he’d never be dealt a solid hand of cards again.
Bharv took an apple from his pocket and swatted away black flies with his free hand. He’d suffered worse injuries. This didn’t compare to the time he fell off an Antivan temple and landed on a rock while snatching that golden headpiece. Bharv skipped that part of the story while standing on barroom tables across Rivain. He’d put a dent the size of his fist in that priceless headpiece. The Lords of Fortune provided all the thrills he craved, but decades in their service left him with long scars and a crooked back. Still, despite the pain, he’d always slept better as a Lord of Fortune than as a creeping thief in his younger years. Through decades of treasure hunting, he’d collected his cut and felt no remorse on days he retrieved artifacts from rich bidders who saw times of war as opportunities to add to their collections. He could live with a sore back when it came with a clearer conscience.
Bharv heard light, elven footsteps behind him, but didn’t turn around. He already knew who was there.
“Well, that was a complete disaster,” Elim said. She’d fled the same distance he had, but her breaths were steady. She wasn’t even sweating.
He spoke with his mouth full. “I’ve seen jobs go better.”
Bharv wasn’t sure if his fellow Lord of Fortune spoke in her true accent
or not. He doubted it. Word was she had a dozen or more. He looked up at her expectantly. Elim nodded and allowed him a look at the red amulet hidden beneath her wig as she tossed the false hair into the brush. Beneath, her black locks were held low and tight with a long pin. Bharv offered her a second apple from his pocket. She accepted with a questioning look.
“My daughters think it’s important I eat right while running for my life,” Bharv said. “All four of them agree on it. They agree a lot.”
Elim wiped the apple on her sleeve like she was trying to rub the red off. She examined it, frowned, then put it in her pocket. “No offense. You are just filthy, is all.”
He nodded. “Had to wade though Starkhaven’s waste pipes to escape. You know, after you dashed ahead and left me.”
“I was trying to flee with haste. You run like a newborn deer.”
Bharv couldn’t argue with that. He took another bite of his apple. Made no sense. They’d recovered the amulet from the lockbox at the Grand Tourney like sneaking the sugarcake from a child’s lunch. No one spotted them. No one at the tournament even sneered in their direction. Thankfully, the security dullards were predictable enough to keep to their usual patrol schedule. Spectators were too busy being rich; the knights too busy polishing themselves for competition. Bharv and the others snuck away from the tournament during the quarter-final jousting runs and could’ve tooted a horn and waved a flag as they left. Then they were barely across the street before the whole thing turned to shit. Screaming Starkhaven guards. Arrows. Angry tournament knights riding their ridiculous horses. The whole show. Entire city jumped on their necks and Bharv couldn’t think of a good reason why. For that much ruckus, someone must’ve run to the lockbox after they left, busted it back open, discovered the red glass they’d left behind, and immediately known it was fake. Bharv snorted. No way.
Elim muttered irately as she paced behind the bushes between them and the rendezvous point. The sun flashed across her face between the branches. “What happened back there?”
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights Page 33