"Uh..."
"I can bend time to slow our descent, but we'd have to do it together and I'll only be able to use one hand." She indicated the supposedly more terrifying clay pot still snuggled to her midsection.
"Oh," Cullen gulped a few times, willing saliva down his raw throat, "yes, I am sure I could if...why don't I hold the pot thing while you cast spells with both hands?"
Lana's eyes widened as she glanced towards whatever it was, then she chattered her teeth, "That would be unwise. Very, very unwise. We only found a balance if a pressure is applied to...Just, you'll have to trust me."
"I do," he said so quickly she blinked from the confession.
"All right, good, that's...good. Grab me and we'll get started."
He'd already thrown his arms around her to stop her from falling once before. This was no different. There was no reason to treat it like an insurmountable task, just grip onto her body and think about darkspawn. Winds shifted, casting the smell of fetid sulfuric air through his nose and Cullen glanced down at the mass of creatures unaware of them. He pressed his fingers into Lana's hips, surprised to find less give than he expected. Something other than the typical corset protected her midsection.
"Ready?" she asked. Cullen nodded, then remembered she couldn't very well see him and whispered in her ear. It must be his imagination that she trembled from his breath, or he could unnerve her. Mages tended to skitter away from templars, and that's what she was a mage. And he was a templar, holding onto a mage, trying to find any canticle to recite that would get him through this.
Light sputtered up around the ground directly below them, the air refracting into frosted edges around them. It looked like water droplets splattered across a glass. "Jump!" Lana shouted. Together they both stepped off the outcropping and plummeted towards the rock a leg breaking distance below. The forces of the world tugged at Cullen, as strong as normal, and he tried to hiss in her ear when something yanked him upward. It was soft, and delicate, like gloved hands carefully plucking him up. They couldn't compete against the power of his jump, but each one slowed them a bit more until the pair landed flat footed.
The light melted away, and Lana sighed, "There, not so bad. I knew I could still do it."
"Still do it?"
"It's been a few years since I tried that one. I don't make a habit out of jumping off cliffs," she shrugged her shoulders and Cullen realized he still held her tight. Breaking away, she stepped forward, but didn't rush off to the supposed path out of the darkspawn. Instead, Lana turned to him and nodded, "Now's the time for swords."
"Right." He unsheathed his sword, the edge far too notched than was regulation. It'd seen an excess of use as of late. Cullen rotated his wrist, settling the blade into a comfortable stance. "This is when I take the lead."
Lana nodded her head and stepped back, her face vanishing into the shadows. Almost no lyrium chewed through the rocks here and they had to abandon the torch. At least he could unearth his shield with his free hand. The symbol of the order faded into the dank along with everything else in the deep roads. Cullen stepped forward, his eyes glaring down at the mass of darkspawn, then snapping back up ahead of them. So far so good, the monsters were too enraptured in their digging to bother with a couple of humans crawling above their heads. Even by the barest light of only a few deep mushrooms, he could see the path's entrance ahead. This was going rather well, all things considered.
"Ah," Lana cried behind him, her voice at a whisper.
Cullen stopped, but didn't turn to face her, his eyes hunting down at the unobservant darkspawn mass. "What is it?"
"The cavern is not empty," she said, a malice shredding her voice. She gestured the end of her staff at their only hope for an exit as two of the human sized darkspawn stepped into view.What were they called? Hurlocks? The last was lankier, its head extended like a wolfs. It struck Cullen how they milled about the same way a human soldier would, their weapons tipped across their backs as they slowly slid along the path. If he didn't know better, he'd swear somewhere there was a darkspawn lieutenant who screamed their names every day for insubordination.
"What now?" he asked. Three blood red eyes snapped at him and an unholy scream echoed from one. Well, that answered it. The first hurlock untethered its own axe and came at Cullen jabbering in their tongue. Swinging fast, Cullen caught the edge of the blade with his shield. He threw all his back muscles into knocking it away. The hurlock twisted to the side, giving Cullen the opportunity to attack with his own sword. The blade sliced up the creature's side, splitting through rib and offal that scattered in his wake. Still shrieking, the hurlock tumbled to the ground, black blood dribbling across the dirt. Cullen spun away from the dying creature to stare into the cold eyes of the second one. He tried to roll his shoulders back to bring the shield up, but the creature was too close. Its hammer swung high for a bone breaking blow.
Lightning crashed up the creature's armor, it's skin charring from the heat as its limbs convulsed. Unable to maintain its hold, the hammer slipped out of the dead hurlock's hands and its body crumpled backwards. The smell of burnt flesh twisted Cullen's stomach, but he still turned back to Lana. Her eyes glowed with the power of the fade. She didn't see him, her focus was on the last of the group. The final creature tipped its head back and cried, the sound drilling through Cullen's marrow and strangling his brain. He dipped down, summoning every mental exercise he'd used fighting against blood mages to will his arm up. The shrieking darkspawn lopped towards them like a gangly dog, its claws extended towards the prey.
It leapt into the air, teeth baring to bite down on Cullen, when the templar rose up and bashed the edge of his shield into the creature's jaw. It flew up from the force and Lana shot another bolt of lightning at it, knocking the body off their platform.
"What was that shrieking horror?" Cullen gasped, trying to shake his ears back to life.
"A shriek, actually."
"A creative endeavor naming that one, the grey warden's were really stretching their limits." He continued to rant until he could finally hear his own words, the shriek's spell having broken. Something brushed against the back of his arm, and he turned to see Lana prodding him gently with her staff. She still held the clay pot close, but her attention was on the landing below.
The shriek's body skipped through the darkspawn horde like a stone across a still pond. Ripples of creatures rose up from their digging to glare at the invaders who dared to kill one of their own. His early estimate of their numbers was far off. The darkspawn horde wasn't in the hundreds. The hundreds stood upon more hundreds, who were now trying to climb over them to see what disturbed their work. Thousands of red eyes hunted through the dark, sniffing for the grey warden.
"Oh Maker," Cullen cried, waving his impotent sword.
"To the path! Now!" Lana screamed, waving her hand towards it.
Cullen picked up his legs, the muscles groaning from all this sprinting. He ignored the pain and faced their only hope, which was quickly filling with more darkspawn. The horde may be mindless, but they caught on fast to what the invaders were up to. While some scurried up the rock face to climb to them, others ran along the paths, their blackened corrupted armor jangling like the peel of a death bell.
Fifteen of the creatures stood as a wall blocking off their path. Each snarled and snapped while waving their blades in fury. They didn't have to form a proper blockade, only one needed to get lucky. Cullen extended his sword and he tried to burrow under his shield. This was suicide now, but he wasn't about to back down. The air thickened and pulled from his lungs. He gasped for more and found himself swallowing icicles. Before he could turn to Lana to warn her, a blast of ice shot just over his shoulder. It struck two darkspawn in the chest, then linked to ones standing beside it, then another and another, until the wall was a fractal snowflake, each creature frozen solid.
"Bash through them!" Lana shouted, her words whipping against unnatural winter winds.
Cullen threw his might behind his s
hield and did as she said. When his body met darkspawn, there was no pushback from the creatures. They cracked in place, their cleaved bodies shattering into pieces strewn across the ground. He hacked a path through them with his sword, trying to carve it away and not think about the horrors of what it would look like upon thaw.
"Don't drink any blood!" Lana shouted, a dangerous exhaustion curling in her voice. How much more did she have in her?
"I wasn't intending to, rather doubtful the darkspawn have clean glassware," Cullen answered back, finishing off the last of their wall. His sword stuck into the meat, the body not shattering into pieces. The ice spell was wearing off quickly, even though it managed to kill fifteen creatures in one throw. He'd ever seen anything so destructive before. Maker, if the mages of Kirkwall learned how to do something like that...
His thought trailed away as the first wave of darkspawn crawled their way up to their level. "Lana! Behind you!" he screamed, waving his sword at her.
She spun and with one hand, smashed the bladed edge of her staff through the darkspawn's chest. Shoving it off with her foot, the creature tumbled back into its own, blood curdling on the ground.
"It's not dead!" Cullen shouted. Despite her best efforts, the blade only bit a few inches into the creature's skin.
Lana sneered and she raised the crystal end of her staff at the bloodied but not beaten darkspawn. The smell of decay and waste wafted off her as she cast something at the creature. For a moment it blinked, waiting for the spell to take effect, but nothing happened. She must already be out of mana. Cullen tried to shove her aside, but she stood her ground and with a flick of her wrist brought the staff blade through the darkspawn's skull.
Its entire body erupted, coating the walls and darkspawn behind it in blood and gore. Cullen ducked down, but Lana threw up a barrier, the ichor sizzling in the air before harmlessly falling to the ground. The other darkspawn, now coated in their compatriots life blood, twitched and writhed until one by one they all exploded in the same gore. The mage turned away from the scene and checked on the pot cupped tight to her breast. She must have sensed Cullen staring up at her, as she explained, "Virulent walking bomb combined with a little something I picked up in the Anderfells."
"That's..." The ground twisted below them, a massive quake vibrating up his legs and rattling every rivet in his borrowed armor.
Lana's face drained, the whites of her eyes almost visible in terror, "Oh shit, ogre!"
He'd heard of the horned creatures, ten feet tall with mouths wide enough to rip a man in half. The stories did not do them justice. Cullen gripped tighter to his sword as he turned to face the ogre rising up towards them, its feet smashing through the path. Each step rattled the cavern knocking rock off the ceiling. "How do we defeat it?"
"We don't, we run, now! To the exit!" she pointed towards the pitch black cavern that the giant was slowly climbing to cut them off of. Cullen whispered a prayer to Andraste as he willed his thighs to obey him one last time. That was all he needed, just one more burst of energy to make it through. More darkspawn climbed from behind, but the pair ran away from them. Lana was quick on his heels, her staff zapping out a bolt here and there, but if anything hit it was by luck. He swung both sword and shield with all the skill of a recruit, neither of them caring if they took anything down. All that mattered was survival.
A massive hand, as grey as the grave, reached for Cullen. He tried to swing to slice into it, but Lana snapped a more powerful lightning bolt at the ogre's leg. Its horned head shook and the hand moved for the mage attacking it. Cullen jumped high, straining his reach to try and slice into the ogre's arm. His blade bit at best a few inches into the thick flesh, but it was enough for the ogre to rear back. Lana dashed to the side, and both slipped into the cavern.
Pitch black, only the sound of their heartbeats and pounding feet echoed through the passageway. Cullen tried to ask if there were anymore darkspawn ahead, but his breath rattled in his chest, unwilling to part with a single word. The ogre tried to follow after them, but its gigantic size couldn't fit. Instead, it beat its fists against the outside of the passageway, shaking rocks off the ceiling. And through that, the horde continued to follow behind them.
"Lana?" Cullen managed to gasp out.
"Get to the exit!" she screamed, her breath steadier. Maker, how often did she do this? His elbows slammed into the walls and his feet rolled across uneven ground, but he didn't falter in his steps. Twisting through the black earth before them, Cullen felt a breeze fresher than anything from behind.
"I think I can feel it ahead," he said. Either it was his mind playing tricks or the area before them was a softer shade of grey in the field of black.
"Ah!" Lana cried, the sound of her scrabbling against the twisting landscape echoed behind. Cullen twisted and reached for her without knowing where she was. Somehow he caught her elbow, and heard the sounds of her staff clattering to the floor.
"Sod this," she said, shaking off his grip. Rising up, she lit her fingers with a flame. The burst of light bleached his eyes until he blinked and could see her face. People spoke of her duel against Loghain Mac Tir in the palace's throne room. How she bore a face out of ancient myth, the terrifying hero emerged from an unknowable land that steps out of it to save the world with a certainty unavailable to mortals. He thought it nonsense of course, but in this moment her face twisted into a controlled assurance so cold there was no arguing with her power.
Lana touched her fingertip to the clay pot. The end caught in fire, and she hurled it as far from herself as possible. The darkspawn watched the fire arc into their midst, the front ones twisting back from it. As it shattered into the wall, light and a powerful force burst free, shaking the walls of the cavern like ten ogre fists. Grabbing up her staff, Lana shoved into Cullen and the two of them rolled into the exit. The sounds of rocks smashing into earth and splattering bodies echoed in their wake. Even still, Lana yanked open her bag, unearthed another pot, lit it and tossed it in. This time the darkspawn screamed as they were aware of death shattering through the air. The few surviving ones scrabbled as the grenade caught and exploded into the walls of the cavern. There was no one to crawl out in the end, not that they could. The entire path collapsed into a wall of rock.
The humans held their breath, counting to hear if anything would try and crawl out through the debris, but it seemed to be impenetrable. Only their heartbeats echoed down the chiseled stones of the road they stood upon, dwarven runes lighting a red glow around them. Lana tipped her head, listening to that internal grey warden sense. After a moment, she smiled wide, "There are none near us. We did it!"
She jumped up and threw her arms around Cullen's neck. His fingers knotted behind the small of her back, lifting her higher as they gave in to the jubilation of walking through an army of darkspawn and coming out alive. Her cheek pressed into the side of his neck, and he felt it widening, the smile even infecting his dour face. They stood like that, bodies entangled in a celebratory hug for what felt both like hours and a heartbeat. He was well aware of the dangers that could be lurking in any of the multitude of shadows, but he also did not want to let go.
Lana's hands broke from his neck, her retreating heat chilling his skin as she slipped down off her raised toes. She stared up at him, only the ghost of a smile twisting up her lips while an enigmatic thought dove in the depths of her eyes. Whatever she was thinking, he knew he'd never fully know it, her mind always shrouded in mystery. Cullen bent his knees and, against all common sense, softly pressed his lips to hers. It was the barest of touches, a terror crawling up his spine at daring to try. His hands limply draped against her back if she needed to flee.
Her lips slipped away, and Cullen let her go, prepared to accept his mistake. He began to pull back when Lana hopped up onto her toes. Threading her fingers through his curls, she pulled his head down to hers. This wasn't the almost chaste kiss of before, she drunk from him like a woman walking the wastes. She tasted of the twang of magic but there was a s
weet spice below, her tongue encouraging his, leading his. Cullen's fingers gripped into the small of her back, pulling her body tighter to him. A moan rolled in her throat and her fingers drifted out of his hair and down the armor. Her eyes flew open as she circled the griffin relief and she dropped off her toes breaking contact.
Cullen opened his arms, and Lana stepped out of them, her two fingers patting her lips. Shock threaded across her face and her eyes stared through him. "You should probably rest," she said, still sliding back as if afraid he might lunge for her. "After the fight, we'll have time to catch up to White, you'd want to be at your best." Lana continued to start and restart new sentences while she scooped up her staff and clutched it tight to her chest.
"I," Cullen began, his arms still outstretched. He felt too foolish to even lower them, "I did not intend to..."
She skirted around him, dashing deeper into the shadows of the roads. "Darkspawn could still be, I'll go and, go..." her voice carried, as if she needed to come up with an excuse to get far away from him.
Cullen lowered his arms, watching her vanish into the darkness. He could chase after her, try and explain that it was all a misunderstanding. He hadn't meant to, there'd been, it was just that...
"Maker's breath!" he chided aloud. Bunching his hands into fists, he glared at the ground and silently screamed in his head. Out of all the things you could try, you had to do that! You were here for a purpose, a purpose you just jeopardized for your own selfish wants! For the love of the Maker she's a, she's...
Knowing Lana was a mage used to chill his lust, or at least temper it until he could extract himself from the situation. Then she left, became a grey warden, saved the whole world, and he took ship to Kirkwall. He knew in his heart he'd never see her again. Certainly never speak with her again, or be so near to her his heart skipped in a delightful pain.
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