Resistance inside the Keep itself was thankfully light, most of the Qunari in the immediate area having already been drawn to the battle outside. It was possible that they would be too much for Meredith and the Templars, even with Orsino's help, but hopefully she could just hold them off, while Sophia reached her father, and ended all of this. The interior fighting looked to have been fiercer, more bodies of both sides strewn across the halls. Sophia had grown up in this place, in these halls, and never once had she seen blood spilled inside. She tried not to imagine Saemus's face behind the mask of every guard's helmet.
It appeared as though the guards had been engaged in a fight just before the doors to the throne room, and there they had suffered heavy casualties, likely buying time for those inside to bar the door. A heroic sacrifice, but it appeared to have been in vain. The doors did not look overly damaged, but they did appear to have been forced open, and now were simply closed again. She could hear a number of voices from within, scared or angry or confused. If Lucien and Nostariel had not been present behind her, Sophia doubted she would have been able to move forward, and open the door. They were behind her, though, and she did...
A number of Hightown's nobles had been rounded up by the Qunari at the base of the throne room's steps, mostly the leaders of various important families. The Qunari stood guard around them, far too many to take on at once. They were elite troops, all of them, and they had better positioning, archers and spear-throwers with good vantages over the assembled crowd. The bodies of slain guards had been tossed into the corners. The Arishok stood before the throne, turning to face the three intruders, unsurprised by their presence.
"Here is your Viscount."
He tossed a crowned head down the steps.
It bounced horrifically, the crown flying off and rolling off the carpet and onto stone, settling amongst the bodies of the guards. The head, still bearing Marlowe Dumar's terrified expression, came to a stop only a few feet from Sophia. She was certain that her heart had also been pierced by an arrow, as she suddenly lost the strength to stand, collapsing heavily onto her knees and needing to brace herself against the ground in order to keep from completely falling over. The anguish of it gripped at her, threatened to kill her right then and there, but this was somehow different from finding Saemus dead in the Chantry. She had known, in her heart, that this was coming. As soon as the Qunari had attacked them in the streets she had suspected this would happen. As soon as Meredith reported the Qunari took over the Keep, she knew. Her father was dead, and Sophia was now Viscountess. It had always been her future... but it was never supposed to come about like this. Not like this...
She didn't know what to do. She felt like she needed to do something, but there was just a head in front of her now, eyes unseeing. Sophia reached out as if to touch it, to touch her father, but then recoiled away. Touching him would somehow make it more real. Until she had touched Saemus, he could have been sleeping, or unconscious. Only when she touched him did she know that he was dead. This was of course different, but still her overwhelming desire was to think that it had not happened, that this was not real. She was frozen, tears falling onto the carpet, while her father's blood leaked from his head.
A nobleman in the crowd spoke up in anger. "You dare! You are starting a war!" The Arishok waited and watched while the nearest Qunari came up behind the man, and snapped his neck. The terrified nobles around him screamed and backed away, trying to find some kind of safety in numbers. None made another outcry.
"Look at you," the Arishok said down at them, filled with scorn, "like fat dathrasi you feed and feed, and complain only when your meal is interrupted. You do not look up. You do not see that the grass is bare. All you leave in your wake is misery. You are blind. I will make you see."
Nostarielās first instinct caused her to step forward, hands lit with magic, before it fully set in that there was absolutely nothing she could do. This was not an ailment that magic could alleviateāgrief could not be soothed by anything from the fade, nor there was a cure to be found therein for a beheading. That reality halted her in her steps about a foot behind Sophia and a few more to the left, watching the nobility of Kirkwall cower before the might of the Arishok and wondering just how it had all come to this. Where had it gone wrong? Amalia had said that the Arishok was only here for the bookāhow had that, the retrieval of an item, caused this? All this pain, all this death. Nostariel had stared Darkspawn in the face, known the worst of the horrors that they could do, felt keenly the Taint circulating in her blood, kept from killing her only by time, and still she could not help but feel that in the end, it was men that were the monsters. No one person had made this, no one group. The fault lay nearly everywhere, and this was what it brought.
Lucienās throat closed, choking back he knew not what words. Perhaps there were none. It was entirely different, and yetāfor a moment, looking upon the scene, he saw Thierry again, and the blonde of Sophiaās hair was so like Lilianeās. For all the strength he tried to gain, for all the good he tried to do, he seemed always to fail in the end to spare the pain of anyone around him, and to spare the death of the sort of person he most wanted to liveāthe good ones. His friends, even. But whatever pain he bore, whatever he saw standing as he was and looking at this, it was not the barest measure of Sophiaās. And perhaps that was the failure he felt most keenly of all: for how long had he been at her side, attempting to lend his effort to her ideals? Heād needed something to serve again, and sheād given him so much more than that. All heād ever had to offer in return was his strongarm, and in exactly the situation where it should have been of aid, she was there, kneeling and bowed with grief, and the last of her family was gone.
It was like someone had lanced him in the chest.
He almost couldnāt bear that, the way she looked so crumpled, as though she were utterly defeated. As though she were smaller, more fragile, beaten. It wasnāt how he knew her, because even in her weakest moments, there had been a kind of strength about her, born, heād suspected, of hope and love for her family in equal measure, and this was like watching what happened when that light went out. It felt like something in him was extinguishing as well, and all that it left behind was anger. At the Arishok for the murder, at the zealots for provoking the Qunari, at whomever had stolen the damned book in the first place. At himself, for never asking the crucial question sooner. At the kind of world where this sort of thing happened not just here, not just to them, but in many places and times, to many people, without ever the faintest hint of becoming better.
Crouching beside Sophia, he placed one hand gently at her elbow. His words, however, were firm. āListen to me Sophia,ā he murmured. āThis is not the time to fall. It is the time to stand. Kirkwall needs you still. Your friends need you still.ā The sentiment itself may well have been harshāhe would like nothing more than to wave a hand and make this all go away for her. But that was not the kind of thing he or anyone else had the power to do. The Arishok still stood there, the Qunari still had control of the Keep, the nobles were still panicking and likely to get themselves killed, and Ashton had not yet arrived with the book. Lucien did not know exactly what would happen now, but he did know there was no magic to fix this. That was something they would have to do themselves, to the degree they were capable. Some of it would not be fixed, and never could be.
But he had learned long ago that being a leader meant that sometimes you had to feel the greatest of pain, carry the heaviest of burdens, and still stand up to face down the next thing. Because if she could not, how could any of those who followed her expect to manage the task? If her pain overtook her here, then everything they had done to reach this point was meaningless. If it was the only thing left he could do, he would at least stay here, to hold her up until she could stand on her own again.
The Arishok was beginning to descend the steps towards them. Sophia was distinctly aware of his approach, even though she had blocked out the nobleman being murdered, the Arishok's words following that, everything around her, right up until Lucien joined her. He might as well have been speaking in a foreign tongue at first, for her apparent lack of comprehension, but slowly the words sank in, as though transferred through his touch into her very bloodstream. It made her angry as well, initially just at everyone and everything. She wanted nothing more than to mourn her father. So much was lost here, how could she be asked to keep going?
She didn't know, but she was aware that she had to rise. One way or another, she had to face this on her feet, like a true Viscountess would, like a warrior would. Kirkwall still needed her, Lucien said... but in that moment, she couldn't find it in her to care about Kirkwall. None of the nobles in the room had ever sacrificed anything for Kirkwall. The Arishok was right about them. They only sought their own advances, and looked to make friends only when it suited their needs. No, she could not rise for them.
There was truly only one thing that could make her rise. It was that anger, that which began to spill from her like dark blood from an open wound. When Saemus had died, his killer had paid the price then and there, and she had not been able to find any fault in Amalia's handling of the situation. But here... no assassin would come to take the Arishok's life in retribution for this. No one was going to bring him justice, to make him suffer for what he did to her, without cause. Her father had only ever worked to maintain the peace, and this was how the Arishok repayed him for it. No one was going to kill the Arishok.
No one but her.
She reached out, sliding fingers over her father's eyelids, shutting them, before she grasped onto Lucien's arm and borrowed his strength to pull herself up. It felt like ripping a knife out, to rejoin the world like so, and she hastily wiped tears from her face, taking a firmer grip on her sword. She locked her eyes on the Arishok as he approached.
"Maraas toh ebra-shok. You alone are basalit-an, Lucien Drakon. You retain clarity even when all these others are blinded and stricken." He looked to the other nobles, putting his heavy axe upon his shoulder. "This is what respect looks like, bas! Most of you will never earn it."
The doors leading into the Keep swung open violently, revealing an exhausted team of Ashton, Rilien, and Sparrow, with a panting Snuffy lingering behind him. Sweat fell from his face as Ashton entered the room, betraying the effort given to make it in time. But it was clear it was too late, Ashton's eyes darting around the room before finally resting on the Viscount's head. Pain welled up in his face and guilt threatened to take over, and it would have if there wasn't something that he could maybe still do. Moving from Sophia to Lucien and then the Arishok, Ashton steeled himself and reached into the bag behind him.
A moment later, the Qunari relic sat in his hand. His grip was heavy as the guilt morphed into anger. All of this, all the death, all the destruction over a book. So many lives were given for something so meaningless, so... useless. He wanted nothing more than to burn it, but it was a means to an end. Eager to be done with the thing, Ashton set the book on the ground and slid it across the floor toward the Arishok. He wanted to be nowhere near the man who had murdered the Viscount. "There's your damn relic," Ashton said, moving to stand beside his friends.
The Arishok picked up the book with a mixture of surprise and reverence, examining it for any signs of severe damage, of which there did not seem to be any. "The Tome of Koslun..." he said, as though he did not believe it. Indeed, years of his life had been spent in this city, waiting for this particular artifact to be found, and now he had it, in his hands. A high ranking member of his troops came forth at his behest, and he handed the tome over carefully into his hands, the Qunari soldier taking it with a bowed head. The Arishok turned to the crowd. "The relic is reclaimed. I am now free to return to Par Vollen."
"No."
The word came strongly from Sophia, and she had been preparing to speak it from the moment Ashton entered the throne room with the book. If this had happened earlier, she would have been more than happy to allow the Arishok to take his damned book and leave the city. But she could not let him do so now, not after what he had done. This was the reason she had risen to face him at all. She was the Viscountess now, and the Arishok had murdered the last Viscount. She would see him dead, one way or another.
"What?" the Arishok asked, finally directing his attention towards Sophia.
"For the crime of murdering my father, I challenge you to single combat. I will deliver justice to you myself. No one else but you or I will die here." It was perhaps the most foolish thing she'd ever said, but she meant it, and had her reasons. She was aware, as much as she didn't want to be, of the unnecessary nature of any further fighting at this point. By all means, she should have allowed the Arishok to simply leave, and not allow any more violence. But one way or another, she would not allow him to leave the room without a fight. Either she would kill him, or she would die. If she could not fight him alone, she would fight him with the others, but she did not want to drag them into this. A small army of the Arishok's best were in the room with them, as well as a number of innocent, in a sense, bystanders. She would not have any of them suffer for this. It was stupid, probably, but it was what Sophia was intent on doing, even if it killed her.
The Arishok did not seem inclined to accept immediately, however. "You are not basalit-an. You are unworthy. Unless..." he looked to Lucien, standing beside the Viscountess. "You know this woman far better than I, basalit-an. If you believe she is worthy of the challenge she proposes, I will honor her request, and allow her the attempt at her vengeance."
No. Not Lucien. Why did he have to pin this on him? This was her choice, her decision to make. If anyone was to suffer in bringing the Arishok to an end, it should be her. Qunari and their notions of worth... Sophia looked at Lucien, conflicted. Vouching for her would mean allowing her to face the Arishok alone, as she intended. But judging by the two combatants, it would possibly mean condemning her to die. "Lucien..." she whispered, wondering if she was thinking straight, or if the grief of losing her father, and the rage she felt at the Arishok were driving her towards madness. Surely he could see her reasoning for this. This should not have been his to bear. She had made her choice already. All that remained to be seen was if she would be allowed to go through with it.
There was a very long moment of silence. Lucien wasnāt sure if it held all the volume of a crypt because everyone was really waiting on him or because heād lost the ability to properly take in new noise. It was one thing for the Arishok to name him basalit-an; he understood the enormity of the gesture, though it was hard to feel honored at precisely this moment, when he just wanted the Qunari to be gone from here, and the complications of their presence with them, but thisā¦ for it to matter in such a way was something he was utterly unprepared for, and he sucked in a breath, initially unsure how to respond.
He knew what Sophia wanted, what she was asking him. He did not have the excuse of ignoranceāhe understood her far too well for that. But the choice was impossible. He was too seasoned a warrior to believe she stood much of a chance of surviving thisāin fact, he could almost guarantee that if he let her challenge the Arishok one on one, she would die as her father had. The very thought of it shot a cold bolt of terror down his spine, and he dared not think about it for long. But he also knew what would happen if he refused. She was obviously not going to let the Arishok go, and no choice he made, no words he could say would prevent a fight. If they were all together in this, there was a chance, a small chance, but still a chance, that they would survive it. But how many others would die in a completely preventable manner?
His tactical intelligence bade him allow the sacrifice of one for the lives of others, but his heart could not condone it, constricting at the very thought of letting her die for the sake of vengeance, even if it was a vengeance she had chosen. He could almost hear his fatherās voice in his head, telling him what needed to be done, but for once he could not abide the advice of the man who had taught him so much of war. He knew, in the end, that there was only one thing he could do here. Only one thing his mind and his heart both would allow him to do.
And it would surely stain his honor.
Bringing himself to his full height and drawing all the cold dignity he possessed around him, Lucien Drakon looked nothing like a mercenary and everything like the prince he was supposed to be. And he spoke only the truth. āYou could walk all of Thedas for the rest of your days and still encounter none worthier,ā he said, meeting the Arishokās eye with his own. Sophia was not without flawsāthe very fact that this predicament existed at all was proof enough of that. But he believed in her, in what she had the potential to become. In what she was becoming. That was why he would step aside and allow her the choice.
But it was because he loved her that he would not let her die if she lost.
"Meravas," the Arishok replied, offering Sophia a nod. "So shall it be."
The Arishok's soldiers set to moving the nobles aside and clearing a space for the two to fight. Sophia offered Lucien a quiet thank you, one that she felt was impossibly inadequate. She wanted to apologize as well, but there was simply no time, and her mind needed to be clear for this if she had any hope of surviving. The Arishok wielded two weapons, both of which Sophia would have required both of her hands to use properly. The first was a great axe, double sided and tipped with a sharp point, the other a double-edged longsword that in any other hands would have been a bastard sword. They would give him excellent range, and she did not doubt he would swing them as quickly as another might swing a knife. Her own sword, Vesenia was smaller and thinner in comparison, and so was she. Speed, agility, and timing would need to be put to great use. She would not last long, otherwise.
The combatants took to separate ends of the lower area of the throne room, while the spectators were ushered up the steps, to watch from above. The only thing breaking up the emptiness of their arena were two pillars, one on each side of the room. She would need to keep track of those. The Arishok raised his weapons as the base of the steps, signaling that he was ready to begin. Sophia waited a bit longer, attempting to block out all the other swirling thoughts in her head, and focus solely on the battle. Then she readied her sword, and they began.
Arishok charged forward with a remarkable speed, his first attack coming so swiftly that Sophia was forced into a full dive and roll to escape cleanly. She rose swiftly and turned to face him, reacting in time to duck under the axe. She attempted to parry the sword, and while the steel of their weapons rang through the hall for the first time, his strength was by far superior, and her block was pushed aside. The axe returned, busting through her armor at her left side and biting into flesh. She disengaged hurriedly, offering a pommel blow, as they were too tight to each other to really maneuver her sword. Backing away, she took a brief moment to examine the wound. It bled steadily, but she would not be stopped by that alone.
She moved near to one of the pillars, putting her back to it, waiting for the Arishok's next approach. He came with a lunge of the sword, not what she had wanted, and she was forced to block it aside. The axe was what she wanted, and it came next, in a swift overhand strike that would have cleaved her head in two had she not ducked just in time, the blade passing inches above her golden hair. It carried on to bury itself temporarily in the stone of the pillar behind her, and left its wielder open for a brief moment for a counterattack, one that Sophia used to win a slash across his upper abdomen. Stronger he was, but more armored the Arishok was not, and there were many places she could easily wound him if given the chance.
Sophia had sidestepped to the flank for another attack, a more lethal stab through the side, but the Arishok seemed hardly to notice the first injury, instead removing his axe from the pillar and swinging both weapons simultaneously for Sophia's upper body. There was no choice but to block them, a feat Sophia was only barely capable of, at least enough to redirect the blades so that they would not pass through her. Instead they passed upwards, and all three weapons were quickly locked above the combatants' respective heads. Arishok was the one to break the stalemate, with a forceful kick to her torso. She felt her entire chest compress, one or two ribs giving way under the pressure, and Sophia was thrown onto her back, skidding to a stop some ways away from the Arishok, who did not immediately pursue. She grimaced, sucking in a breath and slowly pushing back upright.
"Yield, Viscountess, and this will end now," the Arishok promised. He bled as well, but seemed unbothered by the fact. "If you are as worthy as baslit-an claims, I would rather see you live."
Nostarielās heart was firmly lodged in her throatāthis was all so unnecessary, but for all that it was just as wracking. She couldnāt tear her eyes from the scene before them, and one did not need to be a combat expert to understand just how outmatched Sophia was here. Still staring almost unblinkingly at the scene before her, she reached to her side, grasping Ashās hand as tightly as her grip would allow. It would be obvious to him, therefore, that there was a fine tremor in her entire frame. She was torn between being unable to watch and needing to, and she couldnāt begin to imagine how Lucien felt. The Arishok offered mercy, but how likely was it that Sophia would accept? Looking at her, Nostariel felt a sinking in her stomach. No, she wouldnāt. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Ashton let her clutch his hand, even as it began to hurt. The other hand held Nostariel's shoulder giving her all the support he could muster. His face was drained of all emotion, dark shadows lingering over his eyes. He watched the fight without word, simply staring and hoping that it would be over soon, and hoping Sophia would be okay. He felt helpless, unable to do anything, unable to stop this. The only thing he could do was ask the Maker to lend Sophia strength, to pray. So for the first time in years, he prayed.
Sophia could not yield. Even as the likelihood of her death increased, her resolve strengthened. Physical pain was negligible to her by this point, especially when compared to the more intangible kinds of pain she knew. This was nothing that could not be pushed through. Maybe when she'd set out, as a girl of twenty-one, a bleeding side and a broken rib would have made her falter, but she was not even remotely that same girl anymore. The Arishok would have to do much better than this.
She did not deign to answer his offer, instead replying with a surprisingly swift counterattack, one that actually seemed to catch the Arishok momentarily off guard. Her strikes came swiftly, from one angle and then the next, and Arishok had no time but to block and retreat, and unlike him, Sophia knew the layout of this building from living in it for so many years. She directed him right into a pillar, striking when his back collided with it. Her blade pierced through his midsection, just barely missing a lung, and she withdrew it just as quickly, not wanting to overcommit, knowing the Arishok's own tolerance for injuries now. Instead, she hopped a backstep in anticipation of the counterattack, which came in the form of an axe thrust, trying to put the sharpened spear point on the end of it through her. It was much too slow, for once. She hooked her blade under the bottom edge of the axe and pulled the arm to her, withdrawing her sword and bringing it down in a heavy slash on his wrist. His bracer was the only thing that prevented her from cutting clean through his hand, but she still made it halfway and cut into bone, allowing her to easily follow up with a kick to the axe, knocking it from his hand. His sword slashes that followed forced her to back away.
That wound had clearly caused him pain. She darted away from him, being sure to slide the axe towards the wall with her foot, and get it out of his reach. Now they were on even footing in terms of weaponry, at least. His right hand was also fairly useless now. They came together again in a flurry of slashes, attacking and blocking in turn, and while the Arishok was far her superior in strength and pure force, Sophia seemed to have surpassed him in terms of this single-weapon, one on one dueling. How many times had she done this with Dairren, when he had trained her in his own style? They had stood in one small space and traded blows with blunted swords for session after session, until she knew just how to counter everything that was thrown at her. The Arishok was not so different, he only needed to be countered a little less directly.
Finally, she had him, the opening that she'd sought. Her sword made to plunge straight through his chest and into his heart, and it had nearly done so when at last Arishok did something she did not expect. He simply caught her blade with his free hand, wrapping fingers around the edges of the sword, redirecting her lunge high and above him even as her weapon sliced deep into his palm and fingers. She could not allow him to disarm her, but his grip did not falter, and Sophia found herself pulled to him at his will. His knee thudded into her stomach, a blow that felt like a dozen knife wounds with her already injured torso, before he turned and pulled her on past him, bringing his sword around in a wide arc to slash diagonally down her back.
The strike opened a long bloody line, and Sophia cried out with the agony of it, falling when the Arishok released her sword and mercifully backed away. She did not allow herself to go entirely to the ground, catching herself on hands and knees and scrambling away. She turned to face him, still not yet fully risen again. Blood dripped steadily to the floor below her, and her breathing was heavy. Her bearing, though, was still aggressive, indicating she had no intention of relenting.
"Yield," the Arishok urged her. He seemed tired, though not so tired as she. "Do not waste your life on this. Remember your role, Viscountess. A corpse cannot lead a city."
It was one thing to see or know that someone was being injured on a battlefield, when you fought beside them.
It was entirely another to simply stand by and do nothing while it happened right in front of you.
By this point, Lucienās grip on his halberd was so tight his knuckles were white, pressing uncomfortably into the joints of his gauntlets, but he could not be bothered to notice this fact. He could not be bothered to notice much of anything except for what was going on in front of him, actually. He was more relieved than he could properly express that the Arishok seemed to be in a merciful frame of mind, and sincerely wished Sophia would see that for the boon it was and accept it. Because while doing so would mean she walked out of here bereft her father and perhaps even her pride, it would mean that she walked out of here. And he could find no flaw with the course of action that allowed that.
More than once, he had to bite his tongue to keep from speaking, and it bled in his mouth from the force he used, but interfering now would do little to make things better and much to make them worse. Nostariel was here, he had to remind himself; everything that had occurred thus far could be repaired. But for how much longer dare he believe it could remain so? Would his insistence on staying the course she wanted, on respecting her ability to make her own choices, become the reason he lost her? Could he bear that?
Protecting people is only rarely being the shield that stands in front of them, his father had said. Most of the time, it is standing behind, allowing them to feel the brunt of their choices, and holding them steady if they start to collapse. Inaction was the hardest thing of all for a man like him, though, and he knew not which situation this was. Could he interfere, could he forfeit these lives here to fate, risk the additional death brought by a larger confrontation?
Should he?
āSophia,ā the word, a cracking plea more than anything, fell into the silence that followed the Arishokās command. Gone was the coldness and the dignity, gone also was his usual easy sort of demeanor, his equilibrium, his steadiness. He was not a prince here, because he could command nothing, only plead. He was not a knight here, for the foe was not something for him to fight. All that was left of him was a man, and that man simply could not carry the thought of losing her. He had found at last the burden that was too heavy for his shoulders to support alone.
āPlease.ā
The plea hit her, but she was resolved to ignore it. Her mind was set, and she could not let feelings like that cripple her, not when there was such an important task to be done. She wished that Lucien did not need to be here, that he wouldn't have to see if she fell, never to rise again. This would have been easier for the both of them if they had never met, but such thoughts were the very folly she had to avoid.
Some part of Sophia wondered if the Arishok would truly kill her, at this point. He seemed intent on letting her live. And perhaps, if she took another wound like the last, she would fall, unable to rise, but unable to die. The Arishok would proclaim the duel to be over, and Nostariel would save her. Some small part of her, the one most tormented by what she had suffered, did not want this to happen. Some small part of her wanted to keep her promise, to die before she let anything happen to her family. Her family was gone now, and she yet drew breath. There was something wrong about that to her.
The greatest part of her just wanted the Arishok dead, though.
With as furious a cry as she could muster, she pushed to her feet and charged him again. He was ready for it this time, but Sophia did not overcommit, sidestepping in her approach and making it unclear which angle she would attack from. They exchanged blows back and forth, neither making any solid hits, as each one tired. Sophia was tiring too fast, though, the Arishok merely stalling her out now, waiting for the blood loss to take its toll. He was attempting more attacks with the pommel of his blade now, trying to put her out cold, and it was steadily making him predictable. She waited until she knew the next attempt would come, and then threw everything she had into one last attack.
She dropped low at precisely the right moment, slashing her blade into the side of the Arishok's left knee, causing him to momentarily stagger in pain. The wound she scored angered him enough to attempt a downward swing of his blade, at her exposed back, but this too, she had been counting on. She rolled forward and to her left, ignoring the blistering pain on her back and the agony in her ribs. The Arishok's blade came down hard into the ground where she had been, and her own sword slashed into the back of his other leg. Both legs heavily injured, the Arishok had no choice but to fall to his knees. Spinning around smoothly from that point, Sophia swung her blade in a horiztonal arc, aiming to take off the Qunari's head. He leaned back enough to avoid decapitation, but the point of her sword still slashed cleanly through his throat.
Her mistake was believing that such a wound would finish the Arishok.
He was a fountain of blood at this point, but he still rose, his sword in hand, and Sophia was rooted to the spot, unable to move in time. In one smooth motion his sword punched into Sophia's armor and slid through her midsection like she was made of tissue paper, coming out her back glistening crimson. The feeling was not that of being pierced, as one might expect, but rather that of being slammed, like a warhorse armored in plate had charged her at full speed, taking her off her feet and leaving her breathless and helpless. Her legs quickly buckled beneath her, and it was only the Arishok's forward momentum that kept them moving. He stumbled forward, pushing the sword through until the hilt pressed up against her abdomen, and only then did he let go, releasing the blade and collapsing onto his face, blood draining out onto the stone as he stilled at last.
Vesenia clattered to the ground as Sophia fell onto her side, coughing up a mouthful of blood and shaking. Her trembling hands grasped around the handle of the Arishok's sword, but she was far too weak to remove it. She quickly gave up the futile effort, letting the sudden voices and movement wash over and around her. Sophia was dimly aware that Lucien was at her side. She was glad for that.
āNostariel.ā The call was a terse one, given in the tone of an order more than anything, and while he ordinarily would have felt bad had such a thing slipped him, he could not be bothered to care at the moment. Sophia needed a healer immediately, and the Warden was the best damn healer in Kirkwall. He doubted he needed to spell it out for anyone. As soon as the healer was near, he steadied Sophia with one hand, looking to her and speaking more quietly, but still in as few words as possible. āOut on three.ā As carefully as he was capable, he wrapped his hand around the hilt of the Arishokās sword. Heād elected to take the spot at Sophiaās back, so that Nostariel had better access to the wound, so he was glad his reach was long, else heād have had to angle the blade on the way out, and that risked worsening her wound.
On three, he slid the longsword from the wound, tossing it at the feet of the nearest Qunari. āTake it and your damned book and begone. Rilien, Sparrow, Ashton, get everyone out of here, now.ā Quite a lot of the triage work would have to be done here on the ground, probably, and he was not going to allow that to be a spectacle for the nobility and the Qunari to peruse at their leisure. Fortunately, the latter at least did not seem inclined to linger, and while one picked up the Arishokās sword, none so much as looked at his body. He was dead now, there was nothing of value left in the flesh.
He had no doubt that Nostariel was working as hard as she possibly could, but Sophia was bleeding at an alarming rate, and so Lucien unbuckled all of the armor on his left arm, allowing access to his relatively-clean sleeve, which he tore and pressed up against the exit wound, trying to stop her from exsanguinating before the Warden could finish her work. His hand shook; Lucien only took it as incentive to increase the pressure he applied.
She had never doubted that Lucien had experience with battlefield medicine, and she was grateful for it nowāNostariel herself took strength from the fact that he seemed intent on doing what was needed. It was no easy thing, working on a friend in such a state, especially because Sophiaās survival was far from guaranteed, and she herself had so little magic left to give. Everything in her now was put there by doses of lyrium, and she only had the one left. But if Lucien could weather this without letting the strain of it overtake him, so could she. With the bleeding stemmed from Sophiaās back, Nostariel focused on healing from the inside out, trying to knit together all the flesh and blood vessels that had been torn, using a separate spell to siphon away excess blood. The reason so few mages were any good at healing was because it was incredibly complicated, and for her at least involved weaving multiple spells together at once in a lot of cases, something which provided a very quick drain on her reserves.
Sophia would need to be brought to a relatively stable condition, and then they needed to move her somewhere Nostariel could work for an extended period, free the woman of her armor, and really get down into the sinews and bones of the work. For now, though, the priority was just keeping her heart going without allowing her to bleed out on the stone of the Keepās floor. She was dimly aware of the Qunari leaving, and then the nobles being ushered out, not all of them quietly, but she couldnāt spare the attention to give a damn at the moment. Her hands were wet and growing sticky with blood, and she was starting to shake from the pressure of so much magic expenditure on her system. It took a while for her to even feel comfortable using one hand to quaff a potion, but when she did, it was to realize that there was a large quantity of them, about half a dozen, sitting by her side. She could only assume that was Rilienās contribution to the effort, and she was grateful.
She would need them all before the day was out, she was sure.
It appeared as though the guards had been engaged in a fight just before the doors to the throne room, and there they had suffered heavy casualties, likely buying time for those inside to bar the door. A heroic sacrifice, but it appeared to have been in vain. The doors did not look overly damaged, but they did appear to have been forced open, and now were simply closed again. She could hear a number of voices from within, scared or angry or confused. If Lucien and Nostariel had not been present behind her, Sophia doubted she would have been able to move forward, and open the door. They were behind her, though, and she did...
A number of Hightown's nobles had been rounded up by the Qunari at the base of the throne room's steps, mostly the leaders of various important families. The Qunari stood guard around them, far too many to take on at once. They were elite troops, all of them, and they had better positioning, archers and spear-throwers with good vantages over the assembled crowd. The bodies of slain guards had been tossed into the corners. The Arishok stood before the throne, turning to face the three intruders, unsurprised by their presence.
"Here is your Viscount."
He tossed a crowned head down the steps.
It bounced horrifically, the crown flying off and rolling off the carpet and onto stone, settling amongst the bodies of the guards. The head, still bearing Marlowe Dumar's terrified expression, came to a stop only a few feet from Sophia. She was certain that her heart had also been pierced by an arrow, as she suddenly lost the strength to stand, collapsing heavily onto her knees and needing to brace herself against the ground in order to keep from completely falling over. The anguish of it gripped at her, threatened to kill her right then and there, but this was somehow different from finding Saemus dead in the Chantry. She had known, in her heart, that this was coming. As soon as the Qunari had attacked them in the streets she had suspected this would happen. As soon as Meredith reported the Qunari took over the Keep, she knew. Her father was dead, and Sophia was now Viscountess. It had always been her future... but it was never supposed to come about like this. Not like this...
She didn't know what to do. She felt like she needed to do something, but there was just a head in front of her now, eyes unseeing. Sophia reached out as if to touch it, to touch her father, but then recoiled away. Touching him would somehow make it more real. Until she had touched Saemus, he could have been sleeping, or unconscious. Only when she touched him did she know that he was dead. This was of course different, but still her overwhelming desire was to think that it had not happened, that this was not real. She was frozen, tears falling onto the carpet, while her father's blood leaked from his head.
A nobleman in the crowd spoke up in anger. "You dare! You are starting a war!" The Arishok waited and watched while the nearest Qunari came up behind the man, and snapped his neck. The terrified nobles around him screamed and backed away, trying to find some kind of safety in numbers. None made another outcry.
"Look at you," the Arishok said down at them, filled with scorn, "like fat dathrasi you feed and feed, and complain only when your meal is interrupted. You do not look up. You do not see that the grass is bare. All you leave in your wake is misery. You are blind. I will make you see."
Nostarielās first instinct caused her to step forward, hands lit with magic, before it fully set in that there was absolutely nothing she could do. This was not an ailment that magic could alleviateāgrief could not be soothed by anything from the fade, nor there was a cure to be found therein for a beheading. That reality halted her in her steps about a foot behind Sophia and a few more to the left, watching the nobility of Kirkwall cower before the might of the Arishok and wondering just how it had all come to this. Where had it gone wrong? Amalia had said that the Arishok was only here for the bookāhow had that, the retrieval of an item, caused this? All this pain, all this death. Nostariel had stared Darkspawn in the face, known the worst of the horrors that they could do, felt keenly the Taint circulating in her blood, kept from killing her only by time, and still she could not help but feel that in the end, it was men that were the monsters. No one person had made this, no one group. The fault lay nearly everywhere, and this was what it brought.
Lucienās throat closed, choking back he knew not what words. Perhaps there were none. It was entirely different, and yetāfor a moment, looking upon the scene, he saw Thierry again, and the blonde of Sophiaās hair was so like Lilianeās. For all the strength he tried to gain, for all the good he tried to do, he seemed always to fail in the end to spare the pain of anyone around him, and to spare the death of the sort of person he most wanted to liveāthe good ones. His friends, even. But whatever pain he bore, whatever he saw standing as he was and looking at this, it was not the barest measure of Sophiaās. And perhaps that was the failure he felt most keenly of all: for how long had he been at her side, attempting to lend his effort to her ideals? Heād needed something to serve again, and sheād given him so much more than that. All heād ever had to offer in return was his strongarm, and in exactly the situation where it should have been of aid, she was there, kneeling and bowed with grief, and the last of her family was gone.
It was like someone had lanced him in the chest.
He almost couldnāt bear that, the way she looked so crumpled, as though she were utterly defeated. As though she were smaller, more fragile, beaten. It wasnāt how he knew her, because even in her weakest moments, there had been a kind of strength about her, born, heād suspected, of hope and love for her family in equal measure, and this was like watching what happened when that light went out. It felt like something in him was extinguishing as well, and all that it left behind was anger. At the Arishok for the murder, at the zealots for provoking the Qunari, at whomever had stolen the damned book in the first place. At himself, for never asking the crucial question sooner. At the kind of world where this sort of thing happened not just here, not just to them, but in many places and times, to many people, without ever the faintest hint of becoming better.
Crouching beside Sophia, he placed one hand gently at her elbow. His words, however, were firm. āListen to me Sophia,ā he murmured. āThis is not the time to fall. It is the time to stand. Kirkwall needs you still. Your friends need you still.ā The sentiment itself may well have been harshāhe would like nothing more than to wave a hand and make this all go away for her. But that was not the kind of thing he or anyone else had the power to do. The Arishok still stood there, the Qunari still had control of the Keep, the nobles were still panicking and likely to get themselves killed, and Ashton had not yet arrived with the book. Lucien did not know exactly what would happen now, but he did know there was no magic to fix this. That was something they would have to do themselves, to the degree they were capable. Some of it would not be fixed, and never could be.
But he had learned long ago that being a leader meant that sometimes you had to feel the greatest of pain, carry the heaviest of burdens, and still stand up to face down the next thing. Because if she could not, how could any of those who followed her expect to manage the task? If her pain overtook her here, then everything they had done to reach this point was meaningless. If it was the only thing left he could do, he would at least stay here, to hold her up until she could stand on her own again.
The Arishok was beginning to descend the steps towards them. Sophia was distinctly aware of his approach, even though she had blocked out the nobleman being murdered, the Arishok's words following that, everything around her, right up until Lucien joined her. He might as well have been speaking in a foreign tongue at first, for her apparent lack of comprehension, but slowly the words sank in, as though transferred through his touch into her very bloodstream. It made her angry as well, initially just at everyone and everything. She wanted nothing more than to mourn her father. So much was lost here, how could she be asked to keep going?
She didn't know, but she was aware that she had to rise. One way or another, she had to face this on her feet, like a true Viscountess would, like a warrior would. Kirkwall still needed her, Lucien said... but in that moment, she couldn't find it in her to care about Kirkwall. None of the nobles in the room had ever sacrificed anything for Kirkwall. The Arishok was right about them. They only sought their own advances, and looked to make friends only when it suited their needs. No, she could not rise for them.
There was truly only one thing that could make her rise. It was that anger, that which began to spill from her like dark blood from an open wound. When Saemus had died, his killer had paid the price then and there, and she had not been able to find any fault in Amalia's handling of the situation. But here... no assassin would come to take the Arishok's life in retribution for this. No one was going to bring him justice, to make him suffer for what he did to her, without cause. Her father had only ever worked to maintain the peace, and this was how the Arishok repayed him for it. No one was going to kill the Arishok.
No one but her.
She reached out, sliding fingers over her father's eyelids, shutting them, before she grasped onto Lucien's arm and borrowed his strength to pull herself up. It felt like ripping a knife out, to rejoin the world like so, and she hastily wiped tears from her face, taking a firmer grip on her sword. She locked her eyes on the Arishok as he approached.
"Maraas toh ebra-shok. You alone are basalit-an, Lucien Drakon. You retain clarity even when all these others are blinded and stricken." He looked to the other nobles, putting his heavy axe upon his shoulder. "This is what respect looks like, bas! Most of you will never earn it."
The doors leading into the Keep swung open violently, revealing an exhausted team of Ashton, Rilien, and Sparrow, with a panting Snuffy lingering behind him. Sweat fell from his face as Ashton entered the room, betraying the effort given to make it in time. But it was clear it was too late, Ashton's eyes darting around the room before finally resting on the Viscount's head. Pain welled up in his face and guilt threatened to take over, and it would have if there wasn't something that he could maybe still do. Moving from Sophia to Lucien and then the Arishok, Ashton steeled himself and reached into the bag behind him.
A moment later, the Qunari relic sat in his hand. His grip was heavy as the guilt morphed into anger. All of this, all the death, all the destruction over a book. So many lives were given for something so meaningless, so... useless. He wanted nothing more than to burn it, but it was a means to an end. Eager to be done with the thing, Ashton set the book on the ground and slid it across the floor toward the Arishok. He wanted to be nowhere near the man who had murdered the Viscount. "There's your damn relic," Ashton said, moving to stand beside his friends.
The Arishok picked up the book with a mixture of surprise and reverence, examining it for any signs of severe damage, of which there did not seem to be any. "The Tome of Koslun..." he said, as though he did not believe it. Indeed, years of his life had been spent in this city, waiting for this particular artifact to be found, and now he had it, in his hands. A high ranking member of his troops came forth at his behest, and he handed the tome over carefully into his hands, the Qunari soldier taking it with a bowed head. The Arishok turned to the crowd. "The relic is reclaimed. I am now free to return to Par Vollen."
"No."
The word came strongly from Sophia, and she had been preparing to speak it from the moment Ashton entered the throne room with the book. If this had happened earlier, she would have been more than happy to allow the Arishok to take his damned book and leave the city. But she could not let him do so now, not after what he had done. This was the reason she had risen to face him at all. She was the Viscountess now, and the Arishok had murdered the last Viscount. She would see him dead, one way or another.
"What?" the Arishok asked, finally directing his attention towards Sophia.
"For the crime of murdering my father, I challenge you to single combat. I will deliver justice to you myself. No one else but you or I will die here." It was perhaps the most foolish thing she'd ever said, but she meant it, and had her reasons. She was aware, as much as she didn't want to be, of the unnecessary nature of any further fighting at this point. By all means, she should have allowed the Arishok to simply leave, and not allow any more violence. But one way or another, she would not allow him to leave the room without a fight. Either she would kill him, or she would die. If she could not fight him alone, she would fight him with the others, but she did not want to drag them into this. A small army of the Arishok's best were in the room with them, as well as a number of innocent, in a sense, bystanders. She would not have any of them suffer for this. It was stupid, probably, but it was what Sophia was intent on doing, even if it killed her.
The Arishok did not seem inclined to accept immediately, however. "You are not basalit-an. You are unworthy. Unless..." he looked to Lucien, standing beside the Viscountess. "You know this woman far better than I, basalit-an. If you believe she is worthy of the challenge she proposes, I will honor her request, and allow her the attempt at her vengeance."
No. Not Lucien. Why did he have to pin this on him? This was her choice, her decision to make. If anyone was to suffer in bringing the Arishok to an end, it should be her. Qunari and their notions of worth... Sophia looked at Lucien, conflicted. Vouching for her would mean allowing her to face the Arishok alone, as she intended. But judging by the two combatants, it would possibly mean condemning her to die. "Lucien..." she whispered, wondering if she was thinking straight, or if the grief of losing her father, and the rage she felt at the Arishok were driving her towards madness. Surely he could see her reasoning for this. This should not have been his to bear. She had made her choice already. All that remained to be seen was if she would be allowed to go through with it.
There was a very long moment of silence. Lucien wasnāt sure if it held all the volume of a crypt because everyone was really waiting on him or because heād lost the ability to properly take in new noise. It was one thing for the Arishok to name him basalit-an; he understood the enormity of the gesture, though it was hard to feel honored at precisely this moment, when he just wanted the Qunari to be gone from here, and the complications of their presence with them, but thisā¦ for it to matter in such a way was something he was utterly unprepared for, and he sucked in a breath, initially unsure how to respond.
He knew what Sophia wanted, what she was asking him. He did not have the excuse of ignoranceāhe understood her far too well for that. But the choice was impossible. He was too seasoned a warrior to believe she stood much of a chance of surviving thisāin fact, he could almost guarantee that if he let her challenge the Arishok one on one, she would die as her father had. The very thought of it shot a cold bolt of terror down his spine, and he dared not think about it for long. But he also knew what would happen if he refused. She was obviously not going to let the Arishok go, and no choice he made, no words he could say would prevent a fight. If they were all together in this, there was a chance, a small chance, but still a chance, that they would survive it. But how many others would die in a completely preventable manner?
His tactical intelligence bade him allow the sacrifice of one for the lives of others, but his heart could not condone it, constricting at the very thought of letting her die for the sake of vengeance, even if it was a vengeance she had chosen. He could almost hear his fatherās voice in his head, telling him what needed to be done, but for once he could not abide the advice of the man who had taught him so much of war. He knew, in the end, that there was only one thing he could do here. Only one thing his mind and his heart both would allow him to do.
And it would surely stain his honor.
Bringing himself to his full height and drawing all the cold dignity he possessed around him, Lucien Drakon looked nothing like a mercenary and everything like the prince he was supposed to be. And he spoke only the truth. āYou could walk all of Thedas for the rest of your days and still encounter none worthier,ā he said, meeting the Arishokās eye with his own. Sophia was not without flawsāthe very fact that this predicament existed at all was proof enough of that. But he believed in her, in what she had the potential to become. In what she was becoming. That was why he would step aside and allow her the choice.
But it was because he loved her that he would not let her die if she lost.
"Meravas," the Arishok replied, offering Sophia a nod. "So shall it be."
The Arishok's soldiers set to moving the nobles aside and clearing a space for the two to fight. Sophia offered Lucien a quiet thank you, one that she felt was impossibly inadequate. She wanted to apologize as well, but there was simply no time, and her mind needed to be clear for this if she had any hope of surviving. The Arishok wielded two weapons, both of which Sophia would have required both of her hands to use properly. The first was a great axe, double sided and tipped with a sharp point, the other a double-edged longsword that in any other hands would have been a bastard sword. They would give him excellent range, and she did not doubt he would swing them as quickly as another might swing a knife. Her own sword, Vesenia was smaller and thinner in comparison, and so was she. Speed, agility, and timing would need to be put to great use. She would not last long, otherwise.
The combatants took to separate ends of the lower area of the throne room, while the spectators were ushered up the steps, to watch from above. The only thing breaking up the emptiness of their arena were two pillars, one on each side of the room. She would need to keep track of those. The Arishok raised his weapons as the base of the steps, signaling that he was ready to begin. Sophia waited a bit longer, attempting to block out all the other swirling thoughts in her head, and focus solely on the battle. Then she readied her sword, and they began.
Arishok charged forward with a remarkable speed, his first attack coming so swiftly that Sophia was forced into a full dive and roll to escape cleanly. She rose swiftly and turned to face him, reacting in time to duck under the axe. She attempted to parry the sword, and while the steel of their weapons rang through the hall for the first time, his strength was by far superior, and her block was pushed aside. The axe returned, busting through her armor at her left side and biting into flesh. She disengaged hurriedly, offering a pommel blow, as they were too tight to each other to really maneuver her sword. Backing away, she took a brief moment to examine the wound. It bled steadily, but she would not be stopped by that alone.
She moved near to one of the pillars, putting her back to it, waiting for the Arishok's next approach. He came with a lunge of the sword, not what she had wanted, and she was forced to block it aside. The axe was what she wanted, and it came next, in a swift overhand strike that would have cleaved her head in two had she not ducked just in time, the blade passing inches above her golden hair. It carried on to bury itself temporarily in the stone of the pillar behind her, and left its wielder open for a brief moment for a counterattack, one that Sophia used to win a slash across his upper abdomen. Stronger he was, but more armored the Arishok was not, and there were many places she could easily wound him if given the chance.
Sophia had sidestepped to the flank for another attack, a more lethal stab through the side, but the Arishok seemed hardly to notice the first injury, instead removing his axe from the pillar and swinging both weapons simultaneously for Sophia's upper body. There was no choice but to block them, a feat Sophia was only barely capable of, at least enough to redirect the blades so that they would not pass through her. Instead they passed upwards, and all three weapons were quickly locked above the combatants' respective heads. Arishok was the one to break the stalemate, with a forceful kick to her torso. She felt her entire chest compress, one or two ribs giving way under the pressure, and Sophia was thrown onto her back, skidding to a stop some ways away from the Arishok, who did not immediately pursue. She grimaced, sucking in a breath and slowly pushing back upright.
"Yield, Viscountess, and this will end now," the Arishok promised. He bled as well, but seemed unbothered by the fact. "If you are as worthy as baslit-an claims, I would rather see you live."
Nostarielās heart was firmly lodged in her throatāthis was all so unnecessary, but for all that it was just as wracking. She couldnāt tear her eyes from the scene before them, and one did not need to be a combat expert to understand just how outmatched Sophia was here. Still staring almost unblinkingly at the scene before her, she reached to her side, grasping Ashās hand as tightly as her grip would allow. It would be obvious to him, therefore, that there was a fine tremor in her entire frame. She was torn between being unable to watch and needing to, and she couldnāt begin to imagine how Lucien felt. The Arishok offered mercy, but how likely was it that Sophia would accept? Looking at her, Nostariel felt a sinking in her stomach. No, she wouldnāt. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Ashton let her clutch his hand, even as it began to hurt. The other hand held Nostariel's shoulder giving her all the support he could muster. His face was drained of all emotion, dark shadows lingering over his eyes. He watched the fight without word, simply staring and hoping that it would be over soon, and hoping Sophia would be okay. He felt helpless, unable to do anything, unable to stop this. The only thing he could do was ask the Maker to lend Sophia strength, to pray. So for the first time in years, he prayed.
Sophia could not yield. Even as the likelihood of her death increased, her resolve strengthened. Physical pain was negligible to her by this point, especially when compared to the more intangible kinds of pain she knew. This was nothing that could not be pushed through. Maybe when she'd set out, as a girl of twenty-one, a bleeding side and a broken rib would have made her falter, but she was not even remotely that same girl anymore. The Arishok would have to do much better than this.
She did not deign to answer his offer, instead replying with a surprisingly swift counterattack, one that actually seemed to catch the Arishok momentarily off guard. Her strikes came swiftly, from one angle and then the next, and Arishok had no time but to block and retreat, and unlike him, Sophia knew the layout of this building from living in it for so many years. She directed him right into a pillar, striking when his back collided with it. Her blade pierced through his midsection, just barely missing a lung, and she withdrew it just as quickly, not wanting to overcommit, knowing the Arishok's own tolerance for injuries now. Instead, she hopped a backstep in anticipation of the counterattack, which came in the form of an axe thrust, trying to put the sharpened spear point on the end of it through her. It was much too slow, for once. She hooked her blade under the bottom edge of the axe and pulled the arm to her, withdrawing her sword and bringing it down in a heavy slash on his wrist. His bracer was the only thing that prevented her from cutting clean through his hand, but she still made it halfway and cut into bone, allowing her to easily follow up with a kick to the axe, knocking it from his hand. His sword slashes that followed forced her to back away.
That wound had clearly caused him pain. She darted away from him, being sure to slide the axe towards the wall with her foot, and get it out of his reach. Now they were on even footing in terms of weaponry, at least. His right hand was also fairly useless now. They came together again in a flurry of slashes, attacking and blocking in turn, and while the Arishok was far her superior in strength and pure force, Sophia seemed to have surpassed him in terms of this single-weapon, one on one dueling. How many times had she done this with Dairren, when he had trained her in his own style? They had stood in one small space and traded blows with blunted swords for session after session, until she knew just how to counter everything that was thrown at her. The Arishok was not so different, he only needed to be countered a little less directly.
Finally, she had him, the opening that she'd sought. Her sword made to plunge straight through his chest and into his heart, and it had nearly done so when at last Arishok did something she did not expect. He simply caught her blade with his free hand, wrapping fingers around the edges of the sword, redirecting her lunge high and above him even as her weapon sliced deep into his palm and fingers. She could not allow him to disarm her, but his grip did not falter, and Sophia found herself pulled to him at his will. His knee thudded into her stomach, a blow that felt like a dozen knife wounds with her already injured torso, before he turned and pulled her on past him, bringing his sword around in a wide arc to slash diagonally down her back.
The strike opened a long bloody line, and Sophia cried out with the agony of it, falling when the Arishok released her sword and mercifully backed away. She did not allow herself to go entirely to the ground, catching herself on hands and knees and scrambling away. She turned to face him, still not yet fully risen again. Blood dripped steadily to the floor below her, and her breathing was heavy. Her bearing, though, was still aggressive, indicating she had no intention of relenting.
"Yield," the Arishok urged her. He seemed tired, though not so tired as she. "Do not waste your life on this. Remember your role, Viscountess. A corpse cannot lead a city."
It was one thing to see or know that someone was being injured on a battlefield, when you fought beside them.
It was entirely another to simply stand by and do nothing while it happened right in front of you.
By this point, Lucienās grip on his halberd was so tight his knuckles were white, pressing uncomfortably into the joints of his gauntlets, but he could not be bothered to notice this fact. He could not be bothered to notice much of anything except for what was going on in front of him, actually. He was more relieved than he could properly express that the Arishok seemed to be in a merciful frame of mind, and sincerely wished Sophia would see that for the boon it was and accept it. Because while doing so would mean she walked out of here bereft her father and perhaps even her pride, it would mean that she walked out of here. And he could find no flaw with the course of action that allowed that.
More than once, he had to bite his tongue to keep from speaking, and it bled in his mouth from the force he used, but interfering now would do little to make things better and much to make them worse. Nostariel was here, he had to remind himself; everything that had occurred thus far could be repaired. But for how much longer dare he believe it could remain so? Would his insistence on staying the course she wanted, on respecting her ability to make her own choices, become the reason he lost her? Could he bear that?
Protecting people is only rarely being the shield that stands in front of them, his father had said. Most of the time, it is standing behind, allowing them to feel the brunt of their choices, and holding them steady if they start to collapse. Inaction was the hardest thing of all for a man like him, though, and he knew not which situation this was. Could he interfere, could he forfeit these lives here to fate, risk the additional death brought by a larger confrontation?
Should he?
āSophia,ā the word, a cracking plea more than anything, fell into the silence that followed the Arishokās command. Gone was the coldness and the dignity, gone also was his usual easy sort of demeanor, his equilibrium, his steadiness. He was not a prince here, because he could command nothing, only plead. He was not a knight here, for the foe was not something for him to fight. All that was left of him was a man, and that man simply could not carry the thought of losing her. He had found at last the burden that was too heavy for his shoulders to support alone.
āPlease.ā
The plea hit her, but she was resolved to ignore it. Her mind was set, and she could not let feelings like that cripple her, not when there was such an important task to be done. She wished that Lucien did not need to be here, that he wouldn't have to see if she fell, never to rise again. This would have been easier for the both of them if they had never met, but such thoughts were the very folly she had to avoid.
Some part of Sophia wondered if the Arishok would truly kill her, at this point. He seemed intent on letting her live. And perhaps, if she took another wound like the last, she would fall, unable to rise, but unable to die. The Arishok would proclaim the duel to be over, and Nostariel would save her. Some small part of her, the one most tormented by what she had suffered, did not want this to happen. Some small part of her wanted to keep her promise, to die before she let anything happen to her family. Her family was gone now, and she yet drew breath. There was something wrong about that to her.
The greatest part of her just wanted the Arishok dead, though.
With as furious a cry as she could muster, she pushed to her feet and charged him again. He was ready for it this time, but Sophia did not overcommit, sidestepping in her approach and making it unclear which angle she would attack from. They exchanged blows back and forth, neither making any solid hits, as each one tired. Sophia was tiring too fast, though, the Arishok merely stalling her out now, waiting for the blood loss to take its toll. He was attempting more attacks with the pommel of his blade now, trying to put her out cold, and it was steadily making him predictable. She waited until she knew the next attempt would come, and then threw everything she had into one last attack.
She dropped low at precisely the right moment, slashing her blade into the side of the Arishok's left knee, causing him to momentarily stagger in pain. The wound she scored angered him enough to attempt a downward swing of his blade, at her exposed back, but this too, she had been counting on. She rolled forward and to her left, ignoring the blistering pain on her back and the agony in her ribs. The Arishok's blade came down hard into the ground where she had been, and her own sword slashed into the back of his other leg. Both legs heavily injured, the Arishok had no choice but to fall to his knees. Spinning around smoothly from that point, Sophia swung her blade in a horiztonal arc, aiming to take off the Qunari's head. He leaned back enough to avoid decapitation, but the point of her sword still slashed cleanly through his throat.
Her mistake was believing that such a wound would finish the Arishok.
He was a fountain of blood at this point, but he still rose, his sword in hand, and Sophia was rooted to the spot, unable to move in time. In one smooth motion his sword punched into Sophia's armor and slid through her midsection like she was made of tissue paper, coming out her back glistening crimson. The feeling was not that of being pierced, as one might expect, but rather that of being slammed, like a warhorse armored in plate had charged her at full speed, taking her off her feet and leaving her breathless and helpless. Her legs quickly buckled beneath her, and it was only the Arishok's forward momentum that kept them moving. He stumbled forward, pushing the sword through until the hilt pressed up against her abdomen, and only then did he let go, releasing the blade and collapsing onto his face, blood draining out onto the stone as he stilled at last.
Vesenia clattered to the ground as Sophia fell onto her side, coughing up a mouthful of blood and shaking. Her trembling hands grasped around the handle of the Arishok's sword, but she was far too weak to remove it. She quickly gave up the futile effort, letting the sudden voices and movement wash over and around her. Sophia was dimly aware that Lucien was at her side. She was glad for that.
āNostariel.ā The call was a terse one, given in the tone of an order more than anything, and while he ordinarily would have felt bad had such a thing slipped him, he could not be bothered to care at the moment. Sophia needed a healer immediately, and the Warden was the best damn healer in Kirkwall. He doubted he needed to spell it out for anyone. As soon as the healer was near, he steadied Sophia with one hand, looking to her and speaking more quietly, but still in as few words as possible. āOut on three.ā As carefully as he was capable, he wrapped his hand around the hilt of the Arishokās sword. Heād elected to take the spot at Sophiaās back, so that Nostariel had better access to the wound, so he was glad his reach was long, else heād have had to angle the blade on the way out, and that risked worsening her wound.
On three, he slid the longsword from the wound, tossing it at the feet of the nearest Qunari. āTake it and your damned book and begone. Rilien, Sparrow, Ashton, get everyone out of here, now.ā Quite a lot of the triage work would have to be done here on the ground, probably, and he was not going to allow that to be a spectacle for the nobility and the Qunari to peruse at their leisure. Fortunately, the latter at least did not seem inclined to linger, and while one picked up the Arishokās sword, none so much as looked at his body. He was dead now, there was nothing of value left in the flesh.
He had no doubt that Nostariel was working as hard as she possibly could, but Sophia was bleeding at an alarming rate, and so Lucien unbuckled all of the armor on his left arm, allowing access to his relatively-clean sleeve, which he tore and pressed up against the exit wound, trying to stop her from exsanguinating before the Warden could finish her work. His hand shook; Lucien only took it as incentive to increase the pressure he applied.
She had never doubted that Lucien had experience with battlefield medicine, and she was grateful for it nowāNostariel herself took strength from the fact that he seemed intent on doing what was needed. It was no easy thing, working on a friend in such a state, especially because Sophiaās survival was far from guaranteed, and she herself had so little magic left to give. Everything in her now was put there by doses of lyrium, and she only had the one left. But if Lucien could weather this without letting the strain of it overtake him, so could she. With the bleeding stemmed from Sophiaās back, Nostariel focused on healing from the inside out, trying to knit together all the flesh and blood vessels that had been torn, using a separate spell to siphon away excess blood. The reason so few mages were any good at healing was because it was incredibly complicated, and for her at least involved weaving multiple spells together at once in a lot of cases, something which provided a very quick drain on her reserves.
Sophia would need to be brought to a relatively stable condition, and then they needed to move her somewhere Nostariel could work for an extended period, free the woman of her armor, and really get down into the sinews and bones of the work. For now, though, the priority was just keeping her heart going without allowing her to bleed out on the stone of the Keepās floor. She was dimly aware of the Qunari leaving, and then the nobles being ushered out, not all of them quietly, but she couldnāt spare the attention to give a damn at the moment. Her hands were wet and growing sticky with blood, and she was starting to shake from the pressure of so much magic expenditure on her system. It took a while for her to even feel comfortable using one hand to quaff a potion, but when she did, it was to realize that there was a large quantity of them, about half a dozen, sitting by her side. She could only assume that was Rilienās contribution to the effort, and she was grateful.
She would need them all before the day was out, she was sure.
The Chanter's Board has been updated. Demands of the Qun has been completed.
Act Two has been completed.
Act Two has been completed.