She had him now, she could tell, but she had to press. “Your clan knows so much more than this one?”
Felassan sighed. “Sad, isn’t it?”
“Sad, and more than a little implausible.” She cocked her head, deliberately mimicking Felassan’s own body language. “Are you even Dalish?”
Felassan stepped forward again, until his face was inches from hers, and all she could see were his eyes and the tattoos around them. “Do you want to know the answer to that question, da’len, or do you want my help?”
It was still raining on her, and Briala thought that meant she was in no real danger, that Felassan was not preparing his magic to strike her dead if she answered wrong. But it struck her, staring into those eyes, that if anyone could be so controlled, so tightly coiled, as to keep his magical tells in check on those occasions when he was truly ready to kill, it would be her mentor.
As if hearing her thoughts, he quietly said, “That wasn’t a rhetorical question.”
She swallowed. “I want your help, hahren.”
“Good.” And with that, he pulled her into a hug. “And because I know you were wondering, you were the flower. Now…” He stepped back, and his grin now was predatory but familiar and safe, at least for Briala. “… let us go kill some itchweed.”
* * *
The sun had set not long ago, but the rain continued, leaving the Dalish camp in wet shadows. The Dalish themselves had mostly retreated to their wagons, and the elves with business outside tended to it reluctantly, cursing the wetness as they patrolled the perimeter or fetched food from another wagon.
Ser Michel watched it all, noting the guards, the lights in the wagons, everything.
The guards had given Michel and Celene blankets. The thin cloth had soaked through in minutes, wrapping Michel in a band of cold. Celene had tried to arrange hers as a makeshift tarp to keep the rain off her. Michel wore his. The guards had been surprised and angry when they’d bound him, and it had made them sloppy. Under the blanket, he worked steadily on the knots and waited for the distraction.
He did not make a plan, because he had only the vaguest idea what Briala and Felassan would do, and a plan devised on such sketchy information would only muddle his actions. A chevalier knew when to anticipate and when to simply react, to trust instincts honed from years of training.
Both the canvas bag with his armor and the stolen leather armor Celene had worn sat by the warleader’s wagon, under a canvas awning that protected them from the rain. His weapons were there as well.
There were three guards in view, and all of them would reach Michel before he reached his sword. He twisted his arm and pulled, rain-slicked skin sliding painfully through the bonds, and then he was free and ready for whatever Felassan did.
The rain seemed to stutter for a moment, halting as though unsure of itself. That was the only warning the camp had before great bolts of lightning seared down from the rainstorm and shattered the silence. One bolt split a tree at the edge of camp. Michel couldn’t even hear the crack of shattered wood as booming thunder shook the wagons and rattled his teeth.
“Michel?” Celene asked as the Dalish shouted and ran. Across the camp, Michel saw the Keeper leap out of his wagon and rush toward the woods, his staff an ember of red in the darkness.
Another bolt roared down from the sky, and one of the great wagons caught flame. Someone inside screamed.
“One moment, Majesty.” Three guards, and Michel had no armor and no weapon save a blanket.
He stood, keeping the blanket over the front of his body, and walked toward them.
The guards were looking at the burning wagon and didn’t see him coming until he was almost there. Then the first guard glanced over, saw him, and turned to raise a cry.
Michel flung the sopping blanket into his face, kicked him in the knee, snapped the blanket around the back of his head, and smashed his knee into the guard’s trapped face.
Two left, and though he’d moved fast, the Dalish were well trained, and they were already turning and drawing their swords.
Michel let the first guard drop and held the blanket across his body like a shield.
The chevaliers preferred to fight in armor. Owning a set of armor was a sign of wealth and nobility, and contrary to the bards’ jokes, a trained warrior could still move quickly and gracefully in heavy armor, provided the armor fit.
However, any group that wished to maintain its reputation for producing the greatest warriors in Thedas had to be ready to face fighters who preferred other styles.
Such as, for example, the duelists of Antiva and Rivain, who fought with light blades and often wore no armor save their capes.
The guard on the right stabbed at him. Michel twisted the blanket, trapped the blade, slammed an elbow into the guard’s face, took the blade, and sliced the guard’s throat open as he stepped away.
The guard on the left blanched, then yelled and came in hard with a high slash. Michel ducked, spun the blanket so that it flared out before the guard’s face, then thrust through it, punching through the guard’s ironbark armor and pinning him to a wagon.
Michel drew the blade back out, through flesh, armor, and blanket, then tossed the blanket aside. He grabbed the dead guard’s blade for his left hand, walked back to Celene, and cut her bonds.
“Empress, if you get to the trail, I will be along in a moment.” He gestured to the warleader’s wagon. “I just need to recover our gear.”
“Go with the Maker, Ser Michel,” Celene said as she stood.
Michel nodded and walked through the pouring rain and crashing lightning across the Dalish camp, past the soaked and smoking cookfires and toward the war wagon where his gear waited. His wrists burned from tearing free from the ropes, and his lip and ribs still bore the bruises of the Dalish beatings, but he was more than ready.
He had been polite. He had limited his insults, as Felassan had asked. In return, the Dalish had attacked him, insulted him, and subjected him to foul demon magic.
Ser Michel de Chevin was ready to show the Dalish what an Orlesian chevalier could do.
A warrior stepped from the wagon as he neared it, a silhouette against candlelight inside, and Michel stabbed without hesitation and ran the elf through. As he fell, another warrior cried out from inside, and Michel parried a pair of fast thrusts as the second warrior lunged from the wagon.
It was the warrior who had trained the children. Though he was little more than a dark shape in the pouring rain, Michel could tell by the elf’s movements. He attacked well, with hard fast strikes that Michel could barely see in the twilight.
Then the elven warrior slashed, and Michel sidestepped. The warrior moved to match, and his foot slid on the muddy ground, just as Michel had seen earlier in the day.
With a quick leap, Michel slammed into the warrior and locked blades. The warrior stumbled, off balance, and his foot slipped. With his left blade, Michel chopped down and cleaved through muscle and bone. With a quick, short jerk, Michel smashed the hilt of his right blade into the warrior’s face, stifling the elf’s scream, then stepped back and finished him mercifully with a clean slash that laid open his throat.
Michel waited, but no more warriors came from the wagon, and the elves around the camp were moving frantically to put out the blaze. No one else had yet noticed him.
He made sure that his weapons and shield were ready, in case he was interrupted. Then he donned his armor quickly and efficiently, ignoring the discomfort of his wet underclothes. When he was finished, he grabbed Celene’s armor and weapons as well and stalked across the Dalish camp.
Michel had passed the last wagon and was almost to the trail when a bolt of blue light flashed toward him from the left. He barely saw it coming and dove to the side, but it crackled across his ribs, a numbing chill that stung even through his armor. He dropped Celene’s gear and turned back to where the blast had been fired.
The Keeper’s apprentice, the elven girl who had helped Celene, stood with her glowin
g staff leveled at him, and the raindrops that fell around her crackled as they turned into hail. In the stuttering white glow of her staff, her face was twisted with fear and rage.
With a yell, Michel raised his sword and shield and ran at her. She flinched, looked down at her staff and then back at him, and flung another blast of crackling cold energy. This time Michel took it on the shield, and the metal screeched, protesting the unnatural chill.
Michel was almost to her when a shout came from the trail to his right, and he turned just in time to parry a fierce blow. He checked the blade with his shield, but he had no time to counter as an armored figure slammed into him and knocked him back.
“Good,” the elven warleader said as Michel stumbled and then caught his balance. “You have your armor. I want to see the shemlen chevalier at his finest.” He lunged in again, and Michel took the blow on the shield and staggered back as the warleader kicked at his knee.
“For the insult you have done my empress,” Michel said, “your life is forfeit.” He lashed out, and the warleader caught the blow on his own shield. Michel saw the kick coming this time and slammed his shield down hard, driving the edge into the warleader’s armored leg.
The warleader stabbed high, taking advantage of Michel’s lowered shield, and Michel had to parry, then flailed as the warleader’s shield slammed into his side. “And what of the insult to you, shemlen?”
Michel started to answer, but the healer flung another blast of frigid air that slipped past his shield, and the cold drove like a spike into his side, stealing his breath. He stumbled back, gasping.
“Mihris, save your strength,” the warleader called over. “I have him.”
He moved in, knocked aside Michel’s shield, and thrust hard. The strike slid along Michel’s armor, then caught and slid through just below his ribs.
And for a tiny moment, just as Michel had guessed, the warleader paused to admire his strike.
“You don’t.” Michel’s blade slashed up and across the inside of the warleader’s sword arm. With a gasp of pain, the warleader lost his grip on his blade, and Michel smashed his shield into the other man’s face, yanked his shield to the side, and came down with a brutal slash that chopped through the armor and crushed the warleader’s collarbone. The man crumpled to the ground, twitching. “You did me no insult when you called me shemlen, knife-ear.” Michel’s final thrust speared through the warleader’s ironbark armor and neatly pinned his heart. “And I fought you with one of your allies, just as my empress asked.”
Michel kept moving as the warleader rattled and died, ignoring the hot pain just below his ribs. He had learned the different types of pain in his training. This one might kill him a few days from now, but he would not let it slow him down tonight.
Spinning, he slammed his shield against the healer’s staff, and the shot she’d been aiming flared off into the trees, leaving a trail of falling hail in its wake. Michel’s sword came down and knocked the staff from her hands.
“Please,” the girl said, stumbling back. “Please, don’t.”
“You would have killed me.” Michel raised his blade.
She shut her eyes. “You killed the man I love, back in the camp.”
“One of the guards?” Michel wondered if it had been the youngest one, the one whose blade he’d taken after he opened the man’s throat. “He would have killed me as well. And you are an apostate. A mage outside the Circle.”
The girl opened her eyes. Rain streaked her face. Michel could not tell if she was crying. “I am defenseless, shemlen. Where is your chevalier honor?”
“Here,” Michel said, and brought his sword down.
He checked his side. The armor could be repaired, though a strong thrust would catch on the armor until then. The wound hurt. His instructors would have told him to remove his armor and tend it, but they would also have told him that duty came first. His empress needed him.
Michel compromised by doing a few movements of Testing the Blade, a series of stretches that a smart fighter could use to find torn muscles or strained ligaments that his own pain tolerance had already dismissed as inconsequential. After a few moves, he decided that his side would wait. The wound would bleed, but the elven warleader had found no vital organs with what turned out to have been his dying blow.
He found his empress on the trail to the demon’s circle. Celene stepped out from the trees, and only her pale skin stopped Michel from raising his blade against another attack. “Empress,” he said with relief. “Your weapons and armor.”
“Thank you, Michel.” Celene held her arms out, and Michel quickly strapped her armor on and fastened the buckles.
He had almost finished when Briala and Felassan stepped from the trees. Felassan leaned heavily on his staff, and Briala had her bow out. “Any trouble?” she asked.
“Nothing unexpected.” Michel finished buckling Celene into her armor and stood. “And you?”
“We evaded a few of their scouts,” Briala said, “and Felassan made life difficult for their Keeper.”
“Then let us hurry,” Celene said.
Michel led the way down the hillside. Even in the dark, barely able to make out the trail in the rain and darkness, his feet seemed to naturally know the way.
In the little bowl at the base of the hill, the stones glowed with magic, their light bright enough to force Michel to squint. And inside the circle of stones, where the demon stood in his black coat, perfectly illuminated, not a drop of rain fell.
“Ser Michel,” he said, grinning as Michel came down into the hollow. “And you’ve brought friends. Are any of them for our…” He hesitated, then looked at Michel and said delicately, “… arrangement?”
“Imshael,” Felassan said. He sounded impressed.
“Hello, Slow Arrow.” The demon smiled. “It’s been some time. How’ve you been?”
“Oh, you know.”
“I want you to awaken the eluvians,” Michel said.
Imshael blinked. “That wasn’t what I—”
“Awaken the eluvians,” Michel said, and raised his sword, “or I smash the runes on these stones. Earlier today, you let slip that that would hurt you.”
“Well, there’s hurt, and then…” Imshael trailed off. “Why would you want the eluvians?”
“I suggest you do as he says, demon,” Celene said behind Michel.
“Spirit!” Imshael said in exasperation. “How many times do I have to—fine, fine! You want the eluvians.” He looked at Michel searchingly. “Ah, for your empress, so she can sneak assassins all over the empire and hamstring Gaspard with no one the wiser. And you will give me what I want?”
Without hesitation, Michel held up his hand, still red with blood from the wound he’d taken fighting the warleader. “I will do what I must.”
Imshael squinted, then smiled. “Good enough. Then we have a deal.” He pressed his hands together, and coils of red light shone from between his fingers. When he brought his hands apart, he held a ruby the size of a child’s fist. “The keystone,” he said. “It will awaken the mirror nearest you. Once you step through, stay on the path, and you will find your way to the crossroads. From there, let the keystone guide you. It will point you toward a chamber where you will find a pedestal that lacks just such a gem. Place the gem, whisper anything you like, and all the eluvians will awaken, ready to use.” He smiled. “But only to those who whisper the same phrase. Old magic. Lets honored guards in, keeps tomb robbers out.”
“That’s it?” Celene asked.
Imshael smiled. “That’s it. Oh, you may encounter a bit of trouble on the way to the central chamber, but I’m certain it’s nothing the Empress of Orlais can’t handle.” He spun the ruby through his fingers, then placed it on the ground, stepped away, and gestured to it invitingly. “Now, then, this is yours … just as soon as I have what I want.”
“Done,” Michel said.
With a grunt, he smashed the pommel of his sword against the glowing rune on the nearest stone.
“Hey!” Imshael shouted. “We had a bargain! You made a choice!” He lunged for the ruby.
Michel brought his pommel down again with all the force he could bring to bear, and the rune snapped and sizzled, then went dark. All around the circle, the stones shattered like blown glass.
The demon let out an unearthly cry and fell to his knees, clutching at his chest. The air around him crackled with red light, and he warped and twisted upon himself, as though he were but a reflection in a pond, and someone had dropped a stone into the water.
“Are you quite finished?” Felassan asked, rolling his eyes.
And with a tiny roll of thunder, the light faded, and Imshael stood up.
The grass where he had knelt showed footprints.
“Thank you, yes, I believe so,” Imshael said, and strode out of the circle.
Michel felt the slow prickling dread creep across his neck and tighten his jaw. “You were supposed to die.”
Imshael looked down at himself, then back at Michel. “Then this must be very disappointing for you.”
“Actually, the elgar’arla, the spirit-trap, was what bound him,” Felassan said. “For reference, that would be the rock you just destroyed.”
Michel turned to Felassan, his hands shaking. “You knew?”
“And you allowed him to go free?” Briala asked.
“Well, think about the alternative,” Imshael said as he walked up to them. The air around Michel seemed to turn to steel, and he dropped to his knees, gasping. Briala and Celene had fallen as well. Only Felassan seemed unaffected. “If you actually accepted my bargain, then I would have possessed you. Celene would have lost her champion, and your merry little band might not have survived the eluvians. As it stands, everyone gets what they want.”
Michel fought his way back to his feet. “But you said…”
Imshael raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I said that you should forget about the eluvians, and you fixated on them. I said that you should accept my bargain and avoid harming the stones, and you came back and destroyed them.” He smiled and stepped closer. “You did precisely the opposite of whatever I asked, Ser Michel de Chevin. And now, by the entirely predictable choices you have made, you’ve freed a … spirit … upon your empire.”
Dragon Age: The Masked Empire Page 24