Chapter Text
The gates of the Shrine of Dumat close with a hollow clang.
Sounds like a funeral bell.
“What now?” someone asks.
Samson turns to look at the Red Templars arrayed around the courtyard. Some were already stationed here. Others arrived with him. There are a few more than seventy here. Fewer than half the force he’d had just days ago, and even fewer than those he’d been promised. Fucking Inquisition showed up at Therinfal Redoubt and threw over everything. Every Templar who should have joined them—all marching to the beat of the Inquisition’s drum now.
“We still have a job to do,” Samson says, loud enough that they can all hear him. His voice echoes around the stone courtyard. The faces looking back at him range from furious to terrified to blank. “The Elder One’s relying on us.”
Fuck. Fuck. Out in the fucking cold again.
He shoves the thoughts away. “I want volunteers to get back in the field with me,” Samson says, folding his arms. “Fifty. If there aren’t enough of you by nightfall, you’ll draw lots for it. Understood?”
Mutters of assent. He gives them all a sharp nod and turns, headed back toward the entrance to the Shrine proper. The crowd behind him breaks into noise. Quartermaster informing everyone that they’d better get their requests to her as fast as they can, sounds of some roughhousing. Ordinary things.
Susanne, his second-in-command, falls into step with him just as he’s headed up the stairs. “Volunteers?” she asks.
“We’re fucked and they know it,” Samson says. “Might as well give them the chance to decide how they go out.”
“You want me to remain here?”
“Took the words out of my mouth.” Samson stops at the top of the stairs and leans against the heavy door, watching the activity of the courtyard.
Susanne stands beside him, collected as ever. “Some of the older knights are in a bad way with our lyrium rationed like this. I took the liberty of restricting the armory after Carroll tried to kill one of the younger knights.”
“What?”
“He…” Susanne hesitates. Her jaw works a bit and the neutrality in her voice sounds forced. “He thought he was in the middle of the Blight again. That we were darkspawn.”
Samson stares at her. “Fuck.”
“He’s not the only one,” Susanne says. “People are…confused. Forgetting their words. I…”
The pause goes on too long. “You all right?”
“A bit nervous lately.” Susanne’s voice is clipped. “But that’s to be expected.”
The threads of grey in her dark hair, her crows’ feet, her weathered skin—the signs of age and long service—have never been more obvious.
She turns before Samson can say another word. “Maddox will want to speak with you.”
Feeling as if he’s going to be sick, Samson follows her deeper into the darkness of the Shrine. The Red Templars who follow him out to die in the field might really be getting the better end of this deal. If there can be a better end for any of them.
He’s failed them all.
And there’s no way out now.
-
A good soldier follows orders when they are given.
At this point in his career, Barris really isn’t sure if he qualifies for “good soldier,” considering that when the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste, gives this particular order, his first reaction is to argue.
“I need someone I can trust for this task,” Inquisitor Trevelyan says, “and you have proven yourself to have the highest quality of character. You are exemplary, Ser Barris.”
As he’s learned many times over, ‘exemplary’ and words like it are code for ‘will do what is asked without question.’
In the last few months, he’s had quite enough of doing what he’s told. If someone had started asking questions sooner, maybe things wouldn’t have gone as far as they did. Maybe it could have been stopped.
“Is this,” he asks, trying to put it politely, “a good idea, Inquisitor? I’m honored you think I’m capable of facing such a foe. I only wonder if our resources could be better spent in another way.”
She gazes at him for a long moment. Serene, but…almost calculating. Inquisitor Isabel Trevelyan was sent as a representative of a faction of devout mages, who hadn’t joined the rebellion. As a result, Barris had expected someone meek. Instead, he’d met a hard-edged woman, sterner than many Templar officers and more pious than some Reverend Mothers.
“Let me explain,” she says at last. “The Templar Order was rotting from within, even before the Elder One arose. You, I think, know this.”
Visions of blood and screams and a young face with dead eyes fill Barris’ head for a moment.
“Yes,” he says. He pushes the memory away. Now isn’t the time. “I’ve considered it, since the Lord Seeker’s death. Our officers were too ready to be reckless, to…there was a reason that the Elder One so easily found a foothold.”
“And a reason that so many things went wrong in so many Circles,” the Inquisitor says. “The Templars have a mandate from the Maker to defend, not to destroy. Yet corruption arose from leaders drunk on lyrium and power.”
The thought must be in everyone’s minds and Barris speaks before he can think. “I’m still glad I wasn’t in Kirkwall.”
He winces at his tactlessness, but Commander Rutherford, standing at the Inquisitor’s right hand, grimaces. “I wish I’d had your luck,” he says. “Knight-Commander Stannard was corrupted by red lyrium. It was her—our—downfall.”
“She failed in her duty long before that,” the Inquisitor says sharply, “when she let the horrors at the Gallows begin. We heard the stories, even in Ostwick Circle. All of us feared what would come if the Templars who guarded us followed the path paved by Kirkwall.”
“I’ve seen Harrowings, Inquisitor,” Barris says. “I understand.” And he’s seen more than that. The sickness, the fear, the faithlessness stirring even in Templar ranks. Officers using their authority for personal power. Objections silenced by fear of reprisal.
She smiles, a dismal little thing. “I chose you for that reason,” she says. “We were created by the Maker with souls made of dream and idea, hope and fear, endless possibilities. If the sickness of the Order is to be healed, if we are to move beyond what we are now, then we need men who can see those possibilities. After what I saw in Therinfal Redoubt, I’m certain you are such a man.”
Dreams and ideas are Threnodies, Barris thinks. He used to know it by heart. These days the words don’t come to mind so readily. Barris can’t deny that hearing this from the Herald herself comforts him. She was chosen for a reason. But…
“I’m willing to do whatever is required,” he says. “I just don’t know if trying to redeem one of the Elder One’s own lieutenants is required.”
The Inquisitor laughs. “I don’t know if it is, either,” she admits, with a brighter smile. “Commander Rutherford is of the same mind.”
All the Commander offers is an eloquent scoff.
The Inquisitor ignores him. “But my heart, Ser Barris, tells me this is a step we must take. It was my heart that guided my path to the Conclave, and into the hands of Andraste. I have faith that this is the right way, whether or not it is a good idea.”
Barris nods. “I’ll do it, then,” he says. “Find and capture the lieutenant, and bring him back to Skyhold for judgment.”
The Inquisitor looks toward the sky. “Maker willing, this will come out right in the end.”
-
Though Barris spent a year serving in Ansburg after the Fifth Blight, he’d had little to do with the rest of the Free Marches. When that year was over, he’d been sent back to Ferelden. The Kirkwall Rebellion and all that followed are well-known to him, of course—he’d followed the call of the Lord Seeker into Orlais, after all—but many of the Templars directly involved with what happened in Kirkwall had dispersed into the rest of the Free Marches. At no point in his career had Barris even heard of this…Raleigh Samson.
He’s learned his Blighted lesson about going into danger in the dark. Before he even picks the knights who will accompany him, Barris finds out as much as he can about the man.
There isn’t much.
A Templar disgraced for helping a young mage pass messages to a lover, removed from the Order. Several years on the streets of Kirkwall. A triumphant return, at the behest of the Champion of Kirkwall, and honorable service until the Circles rebelled. Then he simply disappeared from view, only to resurface after the destruction of the Conclave as a lieutenant of the Elder One. Now he’s leading Red Templars on a guerilla campaign through central Orlais against the armies on both sides of the civil war.
While Barris could choose to take a large force with him and simply hope to overwhelm the Red Templars, his instincts say that’s a poor decision. They’ve no idea how many Red Templars are in that force. Reports are of devastation, whole troops of Orlesian soldiers laid low by horrors in the dark.
Terrifying, yes, but the slaughtered soldiers are mostly peasants, pressed into the service of their lords. They won’t have training or equipment of any quality. Even a few Red Templars, with the training of the Order and the power of red lyrium, could wreak havoc on scores of men.
Moreover, a massive force simply doesn’t make any sense. Where would they be hiding? A battalion of hundreds, would easily be spotted and tracked. There are no simultaneous attacks, or reports of complex maneuvers over vast distances. Every attack is a single strike, made in rugged terrain, in the dark. No, Samson doesn’t have numbers. If Barris is right, he has a small force of strong, loyal fighters, moving at speed.
It occurs to Barris, staring at a report from a terrified Imperial pikeman one evening, that Samson isn’t fighting like a Templar.
Well-trained Templars are infantrymen. Of course the Order has cavalry—Barris is no mean rider himself—but most Templars fight on foot. They fight shoulder to shoulder, remaining in strong lines. Against mages, they play to their own strengths, using holy power to force opponents into corners or create advantageous flanks. A Templar force also rarely retreats. There are few foes which can stand against a Templar squad acting in concert, so this attack-and-vanish style is all wrong.
Also, Templars prefer to leave no survivors. A good idea fighting demons, at least. In other circumstances, well…it’s less so. But, every time he strikes, Samson leaves survivors. Many survivors, who all carry tales.
“The point is,” Barris says to Commander Rutherford, “he’s not on a rampage. He’s trying to frighten people. Convince them they’re up against a foe far greater than they really face.”
“It’s certainly working,” the Commander says. He stares thoughtfully at the map of central Orlais, where Barris has marked out the locations and dates of every reported attack in red ink. They cluster like blood spray, a patternless eruption of violence. “He really has left the path, hasn’t he? To abandon his training this way…the red lyrium must be eating him alive.”
“Far from it,” Barris says. “These are the tactics used by mages in the last few years. Strike fast, put on a show of force, then vanish before anyone can muster a response.”
“That’s not what a Templar would do.”
“In his position,” Barris says, “with few soldiers and no backup, I’d do the same thing.”
Commander Rutherford folds his arms. “Do whatever you must,” he says soberly. “No sacrifice is too great for this.”
“I won’t risk Templar lives on reckless fighting.”
“We all chose to take up the shield.” Commander Rutherford looks at Barris, steely.
Barris strangles the urge to inform him that no Templar joined the ranks to watch the Order collapse, or be ordered to take red lyrium, or to be asked to fight their own former comrades. “We’ll bring them back,” he says tersely. “With minimum casualties.”
“Maker smile on you, Ser Barris,” Commander Rutherford says.
-
In a quick ceremony before he leaves, the Inquisitor elevates Barris to the rank of Knight-Lieutenant. He’d expected his first promotion to feel better than this. War gets in the way of good feeling, though. This will get the job done.
He takes thirty Templars. All fair on a horse, all well-trained in fighting demons, none who’d taken red lyrium. With limited numbers, Barris takes whichever officers he can get. Commander Rutherford recommends Knight-Corporal Lysette Chastain, who’d been at Haven; Knight-Captain Rylen offers to assign two of his Knights-Corporal—Belinda Darrow, who he’d commanded in Starkhaven, and Bryony Allen, who’d shown her mettle in Haven—and Barris takes them both gladly. Each of the corporals takes charge of ten knights, which gives Barris more versatility than having to command all thirty on his own.
Before they get to combat, though, he needs to address the issue of tactics with his corporals.
“We aren’t fighting the way we were taught,” he says, in a camp a day’s ride from Verchiel.
Allen looks up from the map on the folding table they stand around. “What do you mean, Ser?”
Barris folds his arms. “I mean that the Red Templars have upended the rules of war as we know it, and we’ll have to play by their rules if we’re to defeat them.”
Chastain mirrors his stance. “I’ve gone through the information you gave the Inquisitor,” she says. She’s discarded the narrow domino mask she wears in keeping with her noble Orlesian family’s tradition, revealing a round, pale face. “And I agree. Though I don’t quite see why they’d choose to fight with mage tactics.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Darrow says. She shrugs. “The mages tore us up like paper in the war. Couldn’t destroy us, they didn’t have the firepower, but we couldn’t destroy them either. I wasn’t at Andoral’s Reach, but I hear that was the only time we weren’t back on our heels.”
“Because they couldn’t play cat and mouse anymore,” Barris says. He nods toward the map. “I believe the Red Templars are counting on that strategy to keep us back. They think Templars will continue to play cat, while they run wild.”
“What else can we do, then?” Chastain says.
“I mean, we could refuse to play.” Darrow chews a lock of dark hair absently. “Just head right for the center, if we can find it.”
Allen stares at the map. “Most of these attacks are…no more than three days from the northwest coast of Lake Celestine.”
Barris blinks, startled. He leans in and studies the map. The misshapen splash of red dots takes on definite edges. There are no dots along the coast, only in a sprawl further out, as if to distract from where the force really waits. “Maker, that’s clever of them,” he says after a moment.
“If I had to guess, they’re using the lake to move up and down the coast. Templars never would, because heavy armor and water don’t mix,” Allen says. She grins and adds smugly, “See, I’m thinking like a mage already.”
With a laugh, Barris straightens. “Anything else I’ve missed?”
Chastain taps the marks of cities. “They also seem not to get too close to Val Foret and Val Firmin. They must not be confident in handling attacks by larger forces.”
“So we strike at the center,” Barris says. “Avoid their inland attacks and make our way up the coast until they can’t ignore us.”
“Destroy their camps and boats,” Darrow says.
“Tear down supply caches,” Chastain adds.
“Exactly.”
As the talk turns to other things, Barris looks westward, over the dark plains. Out there, somewhere, lurks an enemy who represents everything wrong with the Order. He will be found and brought to justice.
Some part of Barris wonders what it will mean for the Order if they can’t redeem him. If the corruption simply runs too deep. If redemption is a clean sword-stroke to the neck.
What will it mean for him?
-
Night’s fallen after a long day of travel. In the past it might have been a time for everyone to cut loose a bit, drink and celebrate, but not now. It’s quiet. Tense.
Samson watches the Templars in sight from the edge of the camp, where the firelight fades to darkness. A sorry sight, all told. Just days ago, these Templars were proud and strong, full of fire. Not now. Getting thrown away again…
Nearby, Couette’s curled up, hiding from the fire in the shadows. The red’s still giving the poor kid nasty headaches—she only just started taking it. It’s unbearable at the start. Part of Samson wants to give her some kind of comfort. But what’s there to say?
Marion and Venner are sitting by the fire together. Not supposed to fraternize in the ranks, under the Chantry’s thumb. Samson’s never given a shit about that. Let them have it while they can. And neither of them have long: Venner, one of their best fighters, was one of the first on the red, and it shows. Marion’s going a bit, but not like him. So let them hold hands.
The two Knights-Lieutenant Keldon and Anneke stand together talking with Paxley. Charting their next course. Paxley was on his way to the Emprise du Lion, but turned back when things went to shit. He’s got a better idea than anyone else of what the Elder One wants. Tomorrow morning they’re supposed to give their recommendations to Samson. He’ll make a decision, pretend that they aren’t just striking out at random, that he’s got some kind of belief that this can get better.
Movement in the darkness catches Samson’s eye. He looks up to see the silhouette of Fornier moving just outside the circle, glittering red. Can hardly wear armor anymore, with the crystals jutting from his body. His face is slowly disappearing behind a veneer of smaller crystals, and he’s…not speaking well anymore. Body grinding when he moves, since lyrium’s got into his bones and joints. He scares the shit out of everyone, even the most faithful, even Samson, and he knows it.
If they’d had more time, if more of them had undergone the change—maybe Fornier wouldn’t scare them. They’d all be like him. The red would be a blessing, strength and power and pride. Instead, here they are.
Samson contemplates the small vial of red lyrium in his hand. Too fucking small. Not enough to make the cravings stop. Not enough to stop the shaking, or push away the fear. But they’re running low, and he won’t take what his knights need. It’s not his first time through this.
As he drinks, careful to get every drop, Samson hopes that this will be the last time.