This was going to be an exercise in pain if there ever was one. Thankfully, Vesryn was pretty experienced with pain at this point.
The Champion of the Inquisition stood at the front of the army once more, fully clad in polished armor, tower shield reflecting the afternoon light, spear ready to meet the enemy. The weight of it didn't feel right in his hand, nor did the shield. No amount of training had prepared him for this, to fight the most important battle of all without his guiding light watching over his every move. The timing could hardly have been worse. He wondered if the others would despair if he were to be cut down in the early waves. For the Champion to have recovered seemingly so well, only to be slain the moment the ultimate battle began.
At least he would make for a fashionable corpse.
He pushed the thought elsewhere in his head. Plenty of room for that now. Better to focus on the situation and reduce the likelihood of getting killed. The Commander had already detached from the army, to lead the others in killing that dragon. That left Khari in charge here. Normally the Inquisitors would lead them, but today they had one responsibility only: to kill Corypheus. As many times as it took. They'd yet to have the chance to fight him together. The ugly bastard was in for a surprise, Vesryn figured.
First they had to hold the line, until the dragon was dealt with. Vesryn stood at Khari's side on the front line, where they'd gathered on the far end of the bridge. The position gave them plenty of ground to give if they needed, and an excellent bottleneck to reduce any numbers advantage, and delay the real fighting between armies as long as they could. Vesryn didn't doubt Corypheus had other plans in mind, other ways of attacking the fortress and getting around the defenses, but they had forces ready in reserve for that. The bulk of the Venatori would have to get right through them if they wanted in.
"Nothing like the wait before the battle. In our tower, awaiting the storm. I'm looking forward to it, little bear." He was glad Leon had left her here. She'd already earned the dragonslayer title, after all. And there was no company like hers in a fight.
Though it wasn't her usual one, she'd managed to find a helmet somewhere, an open-faced one with a nose guard that descended a little too far. She cracked a grin at him beneath it, flashing teeth for a split second before she spoke. “After all this, it better be one hell of a storm, or I'd almost be disappointed." Rolling her shoulders, she reached back to touch the hilt of the sword over her shoulder, needlessly confirming that it was there. Her itch to draw it was almost palpable, but for Khari this was rather a lot of restraint. No doubt the weight of command settled on her shoulders at Leon's absence was more ponderous than she'd ever let on. But she'd been preparing for it, in a way. Learning from the Commander himself for years now. It was a far cry from her first uncertain moment in charge—that had been more his than hers, really, as he'd naturally fallen into the role she wasn't sure she was suited for.
Her attention diverted briefly to Romulus and Stel, right at the front with them. “You guys ready for this?"
Romulus wasn't feigning excitement, that much was obvious. Never the most charismatic of leaders, that one. "Pace yourself," he said. "We've got a long fight ahead of us, and there's no way of knowing what Corypheus has kept in reserve."
"We'll take this in shifts as much as we can," Vesryn agreed. "I know plenty of you have been hoping to get a stab at the last of the Venatori, no?" An aggressive cheer went up from the soldiers all around them. "You'll all get your chance." He looked to his Lady Inquisitor, lowering his voice. "Ready for yours?"
Stel flexed her marked hand, green light spilling from between her fingers, and nodded slightly, breaking from her forward stare to meet his eyes. She hadn't faced Corypheus in battle since the day she stumbled out of that rift, not the way some of the others had. No doubt this fact wasn't very reassuring. But her eyes were clear, her face set; if she felt doubts, and surely she did, she was pushing them down and locking them away. "I'm ready," she confirmed, offering a little smile. "It's long past time for this."
Shouts of warning echoed down from the remaining Skyhold towers behind them and on the bridge. Imminent attack, enemy approaching. That was easy enough to see from the dust cloud they were kicking up on the road ahead. The ground shook, in that way it did when massed armies moved at speed. Vesryn closed his mind to all other concerns, focusing on only what he could see through the narrowed slit of his visor.
He saw fire. "Incoming, shields up!" Venatori mages thew it over the top of the rise to rain down on their tight formation. Arrows came along with it, claiming the first casualties of the battle on the Inquisition side. The wounded had to be pulled back out of the ranks quickly, else they'd be suffocated in the crush of infantry soon to come. Their own archers and mages returned the hail of fire, sending precisely aimed arrows and powerful spells back down at the enemy, still out of sight. They hadn't even met and already the air was filled with periodic screams.
A bruiser of a red templar was the first over the rise, carrying a warhammer and already shrugging off a pair of arrows. His eyes were mad with pain and fury, no doubt the song Corypheus had him hear ringing in his ears. A lightning spell bounced right off him, the magic ineffective against his power. He charged right for the center of the line where Vesryn was, and swung.
The warhammer slammed against his shield, and instantly Vesryn knew he'd blocked it poorly. He stumbled backwards into Stel and a cluster of other soldiers, the knight's charge disrupting their line, and the Venatori poured onto them immediately after, trying to capitalize on the temporary disorder. Inquisition regulars were quick to fill the gaps, throwing themselves at the Venatori behind their shields to keep them back. Another swing of the knight's warhammer crushed a soldier's chest in. She dropped like a stone.
Grimacing, Vesryn got his feet under him and speared the knight, driving him back a step as the weapon slid through his midsection. The knight growled and smashed the shaft of the weapon, splitting it in two and leaving Vesryn with nothing but a splintered stick to wield. The warhammer's pommel came up next, right for Vesryn's helm, and he barely got his shield in the way, saving himself a concussion at the least.
A fierce shout cut over the din; even though his view was partly blocked by his shield, Vesryn didn't need to see to identify Khari, nor the heavy clang of a sword slamming into red lyrium. He was given a reprieve from the assault when the knight turned to face his new attacker. Khari's teeth were bared, and she swung again before her foe had fully adjusted to the strange new reality that was such a tiny woman striking at him with the kind of strength usually reserved for much larger people. Her thrust forced him back on the diagonal, two large steps away from the line.
She swung again, this time just barely fended off by the hammer itself. Her sword flared bright green, tendrils of emerald light snaking from the blade to wreath the haft of the hammer and the red templar's arm. It didn't seem to do anything immediately, but then several of the small spikes poking through his gauntlets shattered too, and he took another step backwards.
The hammer came down faster in retaliation this time, but not fast enough to have a shot at hitting her. Quickly, it became obvious to Vesryn what she was doing—each maneuver forced the templar closer to the side of the bridge, where only a lip of thigh-height blocked him from a deadly fall. He seemed to be conscious of this also, taking up a much more defensive posture towards Khari when he ran out of room to swing as hard as he'd obviously like.
But that—the closing in of his body—seemed to be exactly what she wanted. “Stel!"
With a crack and a flash of darker green, Stel appeared on the far side of the knight, her saber stabbing into the back of their foe's knee. She wrenched quickly, getting herself clear, then checked his body with her shoulder.
It wasn't enough force to do too much, but it wasn't the force that mattered. The slight tilt forced too much pressure onto the knight's bad knee, and he staggered to keep his balance, bringing his good leg hard into contact with the edge of the bridge. That did it, and he toppled over the side, snatching for Stel on the way down. But she was already gone with another crack, reappearing just in front of the main line.
Just in time, honestly; there were many more now appearing just within the Inquisition's line of sight. Arrows continued to rain from above in both directions, though Corypheus's army would soon have to stop firing, lest they risk hitting their own. The archers on Skyhold's walls had a bit more leeway, since they could aim for the back of the oncoming force.
Now came a solid line of Venatori, wielding long pikes and spiked shields. Their pace was slower, but they marched in lockstep—even in his madness it would seem their leader has instilled some vaguely-Qunari sense of discipline into them. A round of magical fire came in from overhead, only for every second person in the line to lift their shields, shifting half a step forward and bearing the brunt of the assault while their counterparts leveled the pikes over their shoulders.
The front ranks of Inquisition soldiers backed off a few paces, catching their breath. Vesryn had to discard his destroyed spear and scavenge up a sword from one of the dead. Romulus discarded a dead body over the side of the bridge, one of the last Venatori of the first wave. He fell back in line with the others.
The row of advancing spears and heavy armor presented a serious problem. They would be hell to attack and break through, and if they did they'd just get further from Skyhold, and into a more vulnerable position. Of course, they only had so much ground they could give. Vesryn waited until the spears were just about in range to stab at his shield before he voiced his concern. "What's the plan here, Khari?"
“Back it up! Slowly!" Khari fended off another stabbing spear before taking a measured, careful step back, then another. The control in the motion, and the way she kept herself faced out to defend in the process, gave those closest to her an idea of what she meant, and the Inquisition's front line formed back up, solid but in motion, keeping the advancing pikes from finding the less-protected fighters behind.
“Gotta get 'em under those magic ballistae." That was less loud, but certainly clear enough to Vesryn and the others around her. The siege weapons Cyrus's former teacher had designed no doubt packed a much stronger punch than any ordinary single spell; maybe they could break this line in a way that the ordinary projectiles weren't quite managing.
The first bolt released almost a little too early, streaking down into the Venatori line with a high-pitched whine, and then a heavy crash. It just looked like light at first, several colors swirling around inside indicative of the unformed magic poured into the lyrium molds by the mages on the wall. It crashed into the ground just barely behind the second row of Venatori, into the heart of their formation, splitting one man's shield outright and impaling him without losing much speed, staking his drooping body to the ground almost as he'd been standing.
It didn't last long though, just barely registering in their sight before it erupted, a massive swath of ice splitting out from all directions and bursting upwards into further sharp spikes from the ground, spearing more of the Venatori and encasing others in ice up to their knees, waists, or near the blast zone, up and over the whole of their bodies.
Whoever had launched it had clearly not expected its power, however; several of the Inquisition fighters at the front were pelted with heavy debris or found the ice snatching at their feet. Stel had to actually physically pull one of her legs free—it had been slathered in quickly-freezing magic about halfway up her calf. A few of those even less lucky were sporting new wounds from sharp shards not quite blocked by the front two rows of Venatori bodies.
The victory, important though it was, proved rather pyrrhic in the long run. Though the ice meant it would take Corypheus's forces more time to break through, there was one member of his army that suffered no such limitations.
A dark shadow passed overhead, blotting out the light of the sun for a few seconds. A shriek, grating and almost metallic, rang out over the battlefield, and almost as a single unit, the Inquisition's army looked up. The dull pink belly of the red lyrium dragon bore what looked to be several scratches, not to mention the large scrape from the catapult shot earlier, but it didn't look anywhere near to being downed yet, and it swept down over the wall, releasing a torrent of fire. The red-orange conflagration engulfed the entire left side, reducing two of the magic siege weapons and several of the mundane ones to useless piles of blackened wood.
The screams from the mages and soldiers who'd been operating them were almost as loud, but they did not last long before dying out, and the dragon ascended with a hard pair of wingbeats, opening its maw to exhale more fire on the troops in front of the gate. But even as the embers at the back of its throat flared brightly, it rolled, sensing an incoming attack that materialized only a moment later: a cloud like a smoky thunderhead, streaks of lightning lancing through its depths, just barely clipped the corrupted beast's outside wing. The source passed overhead at much greater height, identifiable only as blue and also dragon-shaped, before both turned and wheeled away from the gate, climbing back into the sky.
Vesryn looked up to see a person clinging to the blue dragon's back, someone very small that the distance did no favors for in that regard. As much as he didn't believe it, that seemed to be Skygirl. It was all a little too much to take in with a single moment.
That was all he was given, too, before a pain erupted in his side. He turned to see the end of one of the pikes protruding from a gap in the plate. The Venatori were embolded by the dragon's attack, and pushed forward much more aggressively, sacrificing some of the cohesion in their line for speed. It was only a moment before Romulus grabbed the pike with his marked hand, obliterating it with a burst of magic and freeing Vesryn to move again. He fell back a few steps, wrenching it out of his side. Blood ran freely over his plate armor.
Saraya wouldn't have been so stunned by the sight. Wouldn't have been taken off guard. But Saraya wasn't with him anymore.
They had no choice but to give more ground, but they had to do so now in a full melee, as the pike wall broke down and Venatori elites charged through instead, skilled and well trained battle mages that were more than a match for Inquisition soldiers. Their line looked near to breaking before a loud crackle erupted from the Lord Inquisitor's palm, and a rift exploded into existence over the front lines of the Venatori forces. At least a dozen of them were pulled into the void and vanished into nothingness, but more importantly it gave them time to back up and reform their line.
"That won't keep them for long," Romulus warned them. He turned, looking back up towards the wall, which was within shouting distance now. "What's the situation up there?"
It was Zahra who’d leaned over the wall, catching Rom’s eye from above. She was crooked between broken bits of stone and fragments of splintered wood. A hole that had been most likely torn open by the dragon who’d just flown overhead. One of many. Grime and dust streaked her dusky features—Vesryn didn’t need to see her to know that they weren’t doing very well up there. The screams, the fire. The general chaos pressing in on their sides. Her voice cut through the clamor of swords slamming against the icy wall. “Things are tight here, Rom,” a pause, as she reached over her shoulder and grabbed another arrow, “fucking dragon poked a hole in the wall, and now the bastards are climbing up.”
There was no time to respond. Several shouts echoed from above, signaling that perhaps, they had less time than they’d thought. Her face disappeared back behind the wall.
The bad news wasn't limited to the walls, however. The main body of the army had finally cut or burned their way through the rest of the ice, and these were some of the Venatori's shock troops: the mages strong enough to stand at or near the front lines, interspersed with more lightly-armed skirmishers and a few out-and-out warriors. They advanced much more quickly than those before, almost reckless in their haste to engage the Inquisition, who were forced to adjust accordingly.
Stel caught a stonefist to the abdomen, powerful enough to double her over, breathless; she only just avoided the axe that flashed for her afterwards. It cut into her shoulder instead of her head, the man behind it bearing down with his weight on the wound and shifting his grip, clearly intending to wrench it out at an angle for maximum damage.
But she set her jaw and shoved, the faint purple glint to the air around her suggesting an application of her magic, one that sent her foe backwards several meters, until he stumbled into one of the mages, taking them both temporarily to the ground. With a grimace and a pained grunt, Stel pulled the axe out of where it had lodged in her leathers, red flowing visibly from the wound and down her chestplate. Clenching her teeth, she changed stances and threw the bloody weapon with a shout, embedding it in a mage halfway through casting some spell. It fizzled away when the woman dropped, not dead but probably not far from it.
On the opposite side of him, Khari was fending off a few of the overeager warriors. Other than a split lip, she looked mostly fine so far, but with magic in the mix now, it was hard to tell how long that would last. With the damage to their defenders on the wall and the heavy loss to the Inquisition mages in particular, the Venatori ones were emboldened, and they didn't care quite so much about friendly fire as Skyhold's troops did.
And there, in the distance, was Corypheus. His soldiers flowed aside for him like water, none of them eager to impede his progress. They weren't going to be able to hold him here, not in their current shape. Vesryn put an arm in front of Stel, keeping her from getting back into the fight for a moment. "Estella," he said, urgently. "Get back inside the gates, try to find a healer for that." Fighting Corypheus would be a great challenge even at full strength. Attempting it after taking an axe to the shoulder was just foolish. "We'll buy a few moments and then retreat back inside. They won't hold long, but it'll be something." This wasn't going to be like Haven, with people throwing their lives away to give her time to escape. Vesryn had no plans to die here, only to help buy her enough precious seconds to be ready for the fight to come. "I will be there."
He could hear her intake of breath, read the expression on her face, even if it was too subtle for anyone who knew her less well. Concern. Reluctance.
But she nodded tightly after a moment, reaching out to squeeze his elbow with enough pressure that he could feel it through the mail there. "You'd better be," she replied, softly, just for him. But then her grip on him was gone, and she'd disappeared into the ranks, hastening back through the gate in search of treatment.
Taking a moment to make sure the wound in his side wasn't also going to need immediate healing, Vesryn adjusted his grip on the sword in his hand. It wasn't his preferred weapon, but then none of this was to his preference anymore. It didn't change the fact that people were still counting on him.
Vesryn took a breath, and advanced back to Khari's side. There was work to be done yet.
The Champion of the Inquisition stood at the front of the army once more, fully clad in polished armor, tower shield reflecting the afternoon light, spear ready to meet the enemy. The weight of it didn't feel right in his hand, nor did the shield. No amount of training had prepared him for this, to fight the most important battle of all without his guiding light watching over his every move. The timing could hardly have been worse. He wondered if the others would despair if he were to be cut down in the early waves. For the Champion to have recovered seemingly so well, only to be slain the moment the ultimate battle began.
At least he would make for a fashionable corpse.
He pushed the thought elsewhere in his head. Plenty of room for that now. Better to focus on the situation and reduce the likelihood of getting killed. The Commander had already detached from the army, to lead the others in killing that dragon. That left Khari in charge here. Normally the Inquisitors would lead them, but today they had one responsibility only: to kill Corypheus. As many times as it took. They'd yet to have the chance to fight him together. The ugly bastard was in for a surprise, Vesryn figured.
First they had to hold the line, until the dragon was dealt with. Vesryn stood at Khari's side on the front line, where they'd gathered on the far end of the bridge. The position gave them plenty of ground to give if they needed, and an excellent bottleneck to reduce any numbers advantage, and delay the real fighting between armies as long as they could. Vesryn didn't doubt Corypheus had other plans in mind, other ways of attacking the fortress and getting around the defenses, but they had forces ready in reserve for that. The bulk of the Venatori would have to get right through them if they wanted in.
"Nothing like the wait before the battle. In our tower, awaiting the storm. I'm looking forward to it, little bear." He was glad Leon had left her here. She'd already earned the dragonslayer title, after all. And there was no company like hers in a fight.
Though it wasn't her usual one, she'd managed to find a helmet somewhere, an open-faced one with a nose guard that descended a little too far. She cracked a grin at him beneath it, flashing teeth for a split second before she spoke. “After all this, it better be one hell of a storm, or I'd almost be disappointed." Rolling her shoulders, she reached back to touch the hilt of the sword over her shoulder, needlessly confirming that it was there. Her itch to draw it was almost palpable, but for Khari this was rather a lot of restraint. No doubt the weight of command settled on her shoulders at Leon's absence was more ponderous than she'd ever let on. But she'd been preparing for it, in a way. Learning from the Commander himself for years now. It was a far cry from her first uncertain moment in charge—that had been more his than hers, really, as he'd naturally fallen into the role she wasn't sure she was suited for.
Her attention diverted briefly to Romulus and Stel, right at the front with them. “You guys ready for this?"
Romulus wasn't feigning excitement, that much was obvious. Never the most charismatic of leaders, that one. "Pace yourself," he said. "We've got a long fight ahead of us, and there's no way of knowing what Corypheus has kept in reserve."
"We'll take this in shifts as much as we can," Vesryn agreed. "I know plenty of you have been hoping to get a stab at the last of the Venatori, no?" An aggressive cheer went up from the soldiers all around them. "You'll all get your chance." He looked to his Lady Inquisitor, lowering his voice. "Ready for yours?"
Stel flexed her marked hand, green light spilling from between her fingers, and nodded slightly, breaking from her forward stare to meet his eyes. She hadn't faced Corypheus in battle since the day she stumbled out of that rift, not the way some of the others had. No doubt this fact wasn't very reassuring. But her eyes were clear, her face set; if she felt doubts, and surely she did, she was pushing them down and locking them away. "I'm ready," she confirmed, offering a little smile. "It's long past time for this."
Shouts of warning echoed down from the remaining Skyhold towers behind them and on the bridge. Imminent attack, enemy approaching. That was easy enough to see from the dust cloud they were kicking up on the road ahead. The ground shook, in that way it did when massed armies moved at speed. Vesryn closed his mind to all other concerns, focusing on only what he could see through the narrowed slit of his visor.
He saw fire. "Incoming, shields up!" Venatori mages thew it over the top of the rise to rain down on their tight formation. Arrows came along with it, claiming the first casualties of the battle on the Inquisition side. The wounded had to be pulled back out of the ranks quickly, else they'd be suffocated in the crush of infantry soon to come. Their own archers and mages returned the hail of fire, sending precisely aimed arrows and powerful spells back down at the enemy, still out of sight. They hadn't even met and already the air was filled with periodic screams.
A bruiser of a red templar was the first over the rise, carrying a warhammer and already shrugging off a pair of arrows. His eyes were mad with pain and fury, no doubt the song Corypheus had him hear ringing in his ears. A lightning spell bounced right off him, the magic ineffective against his power. He charged right for the center of the line where Vesryn was, and swung.
The warhammer slammed against his shield, and instantly Vesryn knew he'd blocked it poorly. He stumbled backwards into Stel and a cluster of other soldiers, the knight's charge disrupting their line, and the Venatori poured onto them immediately after, trying to capitalize on the temporary disorder. Inquisition regulars were quick to fill the gaps, throwing themselves at the Venatori behind their shields to keep them back. Another swing of the knight's warhammer crushed a soldier's chest in. She dropped like a stone.
Grimacing, Vesryn got his feet under him and speared the knight, driving him back a step as the weapon slid through his midsection. The knight growled and smashed the shaft of the weapon, splitting it in two and leaving Vesryn with nothing but a splintered stick to wield. The warhammer's pommel came up next, right for Vesryn's helm, and he barely got his shield in the way, saving himself a concussion at the least.
A fierce shout cut over the din; even though his view was partly blocked by his shield, Vesryn didn't need to see to identify Khari, nor the heavy clang of a sword slamming into red lyrium. He was given a reprieve from the assault when the knight turned to face his new attacker. Khari's teeth were bared, and she swung again before her foe had fully adjusted to the strange new reality that was such a tiny woman striking at him with the kind of strength usually reserved for much larger people. Her thrust forced him back on the diagonal, two large steps away from the line.
She swung again, this time just barely fended off by the hammer itself. Her sword flared bright green, tendrils of emerald light snaking from the blade to wreath the haft of the hammer and the red templar's arm. It didn't seem to do anything immediately, but then several of the small spikes poking through his gauntlets shattered too, and he took another step backwards.
The hammer came down faster in retaliation this time, but not fast enough to have a shot at hitting her. Quickly, it became obvious to Vesryn what she was doing—each maneuver forced the templar closer to the side of the bridge, where only a lip of thigh-height blocked him from a deadly fall. He seemed to be conscious of this also, taking up a much more defensive posture towards Khari when he ran out of room to swing as hard as he'd obviously like.
But that—the closing in of his body—seemed to be exactly what she wanted. “Stel!"
With a crack and a flash of darker green, Stel appeared on the far side of the knight, her saber stabbing into the back of their foe's knee. She wrenched quickly, getting herself clear, then checked his body with her shoulder.
It wasn't enough force to do too much, but it wasn't the force that mattered. The slight tilt forced too much pressure onto the knight's bad knee, and he staggered to keep his balance, bringing his good leg hard into contact with the edge of the bridge. That did it, and he toppled over the side, snatching for Stel on the way down. But she was already gone with another crack, reappearing just in front of the main line.
Just in time, honestly; there were many more now appearing just within the Inquisition's line of sight. Arrows continued to rain from above in both directions, though Corypheus's army would soon have to stop firing, lest they risk hitting their own. The archers on Skyhold's walls had a bit more leeway, since they could aim for the back of the oncoming force.
Now came a solid line of Venatori, wielding long pikes and spiked shields. Their pace was slower, but they marched in lockstep—even in his madness it would seem their leader has instilled some vaguely-Qunari sense of discipline into them. A round of magical fire came in from overhead, only for every second person in the line to lift their shields, shifting half a step forward and bearing the brunt of the assault while their counterparts leveled the pikes over their shoulders.
The front ranks of Inquisition soldiers backed off a few paces, catching their breath. Vesryn had to discard his destroyed spear and scavenge up a sword from one of the dead. Romulus discarded a dead body over the side of the bridge, one of the last Venatori of the first wave. He fell back in line with the others.
The row of advancing spears and heavy armor presented a serious problem. They would be hell to attack and break through, and if they did they'd just get further from Skyhold, and into a more vulnerable position. Of course, they only had so much ground they could give. Vesryn waited until the spears were just about in range to stab at his shield before he voiced his concern. "What's the plan here, Khari?"
“Back it up! Slowly!" Khari fended off another stabbing spear before taking a measured, careful step back, then another. The control in the motion, and the way she kept herself faced out to defend in the process, gave those closest to her an idea of what she meant, and the Inquisition's front line formed back up, solid but in motion, keeping the advancing pikes from finding the less-protected fighters behind.
“Gotta get 'em under those magic ballistae." That was less loud, but certainly clear enough to Vesryn and the others around her. The siege weapons Cyrus's former teacher had designed no doubt packed a much stronger punch than any ordinary single spell; maybe they could break this line in a way that the ordinary projectiles weren't quite managing.
The first bolt released almost a little too early, streaking down into the Venatori line with a high-pitched whine, and then a heavy crash. It just looked like light at first, several colors swirling around inside indicative of the unformed magic poured into the lyrium molds by the mages on the wall. It crashed into the ground just barely behind the second row of Venatori, into the heart of their formation, splitting one man's shield outright and impaling him without losing much speed, staking his drooping body to the ground almost as he'd been standing.
It didn't last long though, just barely registering in their sight before it erupted, a massive swath of ice splitting out from all directions and bursting upwards into further sharp spikes from the ground, spearing more of the Venatori and encasing others in ice up to their knees, waists, or near the blast zone, up and over the whole of their bodies.
Whoever had launched it had clearly not expected its power, however; several of the Inquisition fighters at the front were pelted with heavy debris or found the ice snatching at their feet. Stel had to actually physically pull one of her legs free—it had been slathered in quickly-freezing magic about halfway up her calf. A few of those even less lucky were sporting new wounds from sharp shards not quite blocked by the front two rows of Venatori bodies.
The victory, important though it was, proved rather pyrrhic in the long run. Though the ice meant it would take Corypheus's forces more time to break through, there was one member of his army that suffered no such limitations.
A dark shadow passed overhead, blotting out the light of the sun for a few seconds. A shriek, grating and almost metallic, rang out over the battlefield, and almost as a single unit, the Inquisition's army looked up. The dull pink belly of the red lyrium dragon bore what looked to be several scratches, not to mention the large scrape from the catapult shot earlier, but it didn't look anywhere near to being downed yet, and it swept down over the wall, releasing a torrent of fire. The red-orange conflagration engulfed the entire left side, reducing two of the magic siege weapons and several of the mundane ones to useless piles of blackened wood.
The screams from the mages and soldiers who'd been operating them were almost as loud, but they did not last long before dying out, and the dragon ascended with a hard pair of wingbeats, opening its maw to exhale more fire on the troops in front of the gate. But even as the embers at the back of its throat flared brightly, it rolled, sensing an incoming attack that materialized only a moment later: a cloud like a smoky thunderhead, streaks of lightning lancing through its depths, just barely clipped the corrupted beast's outside wing. The source passed overhead at much greater height, identifiable only as blue and also dragon-shaped, before both turned and wheeled away from the gate, climbing back into the sky.
Vesryn looked up to see a person clinging to the blue dragon's back, someone very small that the distance did no favors for in that regard. As much as he didn't believe it, that seemed to be Skygirl. It was all a little too much to take in with a single moment.
That was all he was given, too, before a pain erupted in his side. He turned to see the end of one of the pikes protruding from a gap in the plate. The Venatori were embolded by the dragon's attack, and pushed forward much more aggressively, sacrificing some of the cohesion in their line for speed. It was only a moment before Romulus grabbed the pike with his marked hand, obliterating it with a burst of magic and freeing Vesryn to move again. He fell back a few steps, wrenching it out of his side. Blood ran freely over his plate armor.
Saraya wouldn't have been so stunned by the sight. Wouldn't have been taken off guard. But Saraya wasn't with him anymore.
They had no choice but to give more ground, but they had to do so now in a full melee, as the pike wall broke down and Venatori elites charged through instead, skilled and well trained battle mages that were more than a match for Inquisition soldiers. Their line looked near to breaking before a loud crackle erupted from the Lord Inquisitor's palm, and a rift exploded into existence over the front lines of the Venatori forces. At least a dozen of them were pulled into the void and vanished into nothingness, but more importantly it gave them time to back up and reform their line.
"That won't keep them for long," Romulus warned them. He turned, looking back up towards the wall, which was within shouting distance now. "What's the situation up there?"
It was Zahra who’d leaned over the wall, catching Rom’s eye from above. She was crooked between broken bits of stone and fragments of splintered wood. A hole that had been most likely torn open by the dragon who’d just flown overhead. One of many. Grime and dust streaked her dusky features—Vesryn didn’t need to see her to know that they weren’t doing very well up there. The screams, the fire. The general chaos pressing in on their sides. Her voice cut through the clamor of swords slamming against the icy wall. “Things are tight here, Rom,” a pause, as she reached over her shoulder and grabbed another arrow, “fucking dragon poked a hole in the wall, and now the bastards are climbing up.”
There was no time to respond. Several shouts echoed from above, signaling that perhaps, they had less time than they’d thought. Her face disappeared back behind the wall.
The bad news wasn't limited to the walls, however. The main body of the army had finally cut or burned their way through the rest of the ice, and these were some of the Venatori's shock troops: the mages strong enough to stand at or near the front lines, interspersed with more lightly-armed skirmishers and a few out-and-out warriors. They advanced much more quickly than those before, almost reckless in their haste to engage the Inquisition, who were forced to adjust accordingly.
Stel caught a stonefist to the abdomen, powerful enough to double her over, breathless; she only just avoided the axe that flashed for her afterwards. It cut into her shoulder instead of her head, the man behind it bearing down with his weight on the wound and shifting his grip, clearly intending to wrench it out at an angle for maximum damage.
But she set her jaw and shoved, the faint purple glint to the air around her suggesting an application of her magic, one that sent her foe backwards several meters, until he stumbled into one of the mages, taking them both temporarily to the ground. With a grimace and a pained grunt, Stel pulled the axe out of where it had lodged in her leathers, red flowing visibly from the wound and down her chestplate. Clenching her teeth, she changed stances and threw the bloody weapon with a shout, embedding it in a mage halfway through casting some spell. It fizzled away when the woman dropped, not dead but probably not far from it.
On the opposite side of him, Khari was fending off a few of the overeager warriors. Other than a split lip, she looked mostly fine so far, but with magic in the mix now, it was hard to tell how long that would last. With the damage to their defenders on the wall and the heavy loss to the Inquisition mages in particular, the Venatori ones were emboldened, and they didn't care quite so much about friendly fire as Skyhold's troops did.
And there, in the distance, was Corypheus. His soldiers flowed aside for him like water, none of them eager to impede his progress. They weren't going to be able to hold him here, not in their current shape. Vesryn put an arm in front of Stel, keeping her from getting back into the fight for a moment. "Estella," he said, urgently. "Get back inside the gates, try to find a healer for that." Fighting Corypheus would be a great challenge even at full strength. Attempting it after taking an axe to the shoulder was just foolish. "We'll buy a few moments and then retreat back inside. They won't hold long, but it'll be something." This wasn't going to be like Haven, with people throwing their lives away to give her time to escape. Vesryn had no plans to die here, only to help buy her enough precious seconds to be ready for the fight to come. "I will be there."
He could hear her intake of breath, read the expression on her face, even if it was too subtle for anyone who knew her less well. Concern. Reluctance.
But she nodded tightly after a moment, reaching out to squeeze his elbow with enough pressure that he could feel it through the mail there. "You'd better be," she replied, softly, just for him. But then her grip on him was gone, and she'd disappeared into the ranks, hastening back through the gate in search of treatment.
Taking a moment to make sure the wound in his side wasn't also going to need immediate healing, Vesryn adjusted his grip on the sword in his hand. It wasn't his preferred weapon, but then none of this was to his preference anymore. It didn't change the fact that people were still counting on him.
Vesryn took a breath, and advanced back to Khari's side. There was work to be done yet.