Chapter Text
"Remember how to carry your shields. You're not hiding, you're holding. Otherwise it's useless." They weren't much, but he had them convinced the consequences of disobeying him would be worse than any bandit's blade. If they needed to be afraid to fight, so be it. They'd feel like heroes after. He waved away a cloud of gnats and nodded at them approvingly. They shifted around, scared but determined. Good enough.
"Blackwall? Warden Blackwall?"
The sound of a woman's voice was so unexpected he rushed to face her coming off the rickety pier. What in Maker's name was a Marcher woman doing out here with a dwarf, an elf, and a Seeker?
There wasn’t time for this nonsense, but he knew in his bones it was no good - someone looking for the Warden by name. The creak of a bowstring from back in the trees made his hair stand on end. In the half a second of the arrow’s flight, he almost stepped back, let it find its target - probably in the woman’s throat.
But his arm came up. Better to see what was afoot. He could always cut them down and run after.
She flinched at the splinters but her eyes narrowed in anger as she looked for the source and got hold of the bow on her back.
“That’s it!” he snarled, waving her aside. “Help or get out, we’re dealing with these idiots first.”
There wasn't much to it. His conscripts, such as they were, did little more than shout and make threatening motions. But they did it more or less in sync, so that was something.
The Seeker was ferocious, and that dwarf knew what he was doing. The edge of more than one unneeded protective spell slicked over him as Digger, formerly Private Salim - he was certain it was him, the ginger prick - tried to take his head off. The mage was focused on the Lady, of course.
She was green afterward. Awkwardly, she lifted the head of a groaning lad half buried in muck near the water, her face turned away. The groaning stopped with the gurgle of punctured lungs before she pulled two bolts from his ribs, her foot on his shoulder. The Marcher Lady looked relieved, knee walking a few yards away until she sat with her back to the body.
She’d lost her hat in the scuffle. Her nose was sunburned; a good crop of freckles dusted her pale cheeks. He could tell the cobbler had spent a month on her boots. A rich lady kitted out for grand adventure, bodyguards in tow. Not accustomed to killing. Shooting straw dummies, maybe, but Maker knows it isn't the same thing.
He left his sword where he’d jabbed it into the soft ground and went to see what she was on about. It was no good talking to bodyguards. He’d been one often enough to know that you spoke to the money first, if you didn’t want to say everything twice.
Time to see what the Marches wanted with Blackwall.
The dwarf stepped into his shadow, crossbow balanced on a meaty shoulder. "Just give her a minute, Warden. The Herald's a little wobbly once the action's died down."
"She's the one who walked out of the Fade?" He'd heard the farmers talking excitedly about a beautiful woman emerging from the crater at the Conclave, glowing with magic like a golden icon. If anything her hair was bronze, and while he could say she wasn’t a chore to look at, she wasn't the sort of thing bards tell tales about.
"The very same.” The stout little man nodded and laughed, “But Lady Trevelyan would rather we didn't call her the 'H word'."
"Doesn't look like she's done this much."
What did the sole survivor of the ruined Conclave want with a Warden recruiter? Too old to be a daughter. But she could be anything between twenty and forty. Noblewomen don't age like poor folk.
Maker's Breath, had the Warden Constable been bedding this lady?
Didn't seem likely; he'd been fifty if he was a day, running to fat under the armor, and hadn't seemed the sort who would talk a noblewoman at least fifteen years his junior into his bedroll. Or any woman, for that matter.
"Yeah. It's been a weird couple of weeks for everybody." The dwarf called over his shoulder to where the Lady was still motionless in a blotch of shade, head between her knees. "You okay, there? Not going to throw up are you?"
"I'm fine, Varric. But thank you for the reminder." Wiping the arrows on the grass at her side, she looked around until she'd spotted him and held a hand beside her eyes to block the glare coming off the water. "You are Warden Blackwall, aren't you?"
"Why do you know my name?"
He closed the distance between them, the tight itchy fear of exposure crawling up his scalp as he pulled off his helm.
The Seeker edged closer to them, her own helmet under her shield arm. He kept his hands where the dark-haired woman could see them, but made no other sign he’d noticed her watching him. Jumpy, that one. But there was nothing in the Herald’s manner that said she was anything other than sick to her stomach and determined to grit her teeth and carry on.
"Who are you?"
“Evelyn Trevelyan.” She made a face that might have been a smile. “I am an agent of the Inquisition, for the moment. I - We are investigating whether the disappearance of the Wardens has anything to do with the murder of the Divine.”
From there on it was a jumble of lies and half truths, talking quickly, thinking in fits and starts while those pale Marcher eyes so much like his own watched him feint her probing questions. She had the cut glass accent of Ostwick and made the kind of prolonged eye contact that said she wasn’t accustomed to suspicion. Not once did she attempt to stand, waving away his offered hand.
She showed a little interest in the treaties, which he had used sparingly. Blackwall hadn’t flashed them around much, so neither did he. No need for the farmers to start a fuss over a Warden getting greedy when there was no Blight on.
The Seeker perked up too, at the mention of them. So they needed conscripts or supplies, or both to close the hole in the sky.
Then she was done with him. Lady Trevelyan stood, shouldered her quiver, thanked him for his time guardedly and brushed grass from the seat of her trousers.
He’d not had enough good answers. Watching her guards gather round to walk away the panic came back. Here he stood with four bodies, at least one of them looking for his old Captain. There would be more.
“Inquisition…agent did you say? Hold a moment.”
She turned back, as did the elf. He made his case pretty well, if he was still any judge of people after so many seasons out in the woods like a hermit.
“The Inquisition has soldiers already.” The Lady brushed wisps of hair from her forehead, giving him a once over like he was a horse on the auction block.
She came nearer and he found himself fighting back a scowl. Strange young women don’t crowd a man his size in full armor. There were lines around her eyes and the kind of thoughtful quiet frown you didn’t see on a flighty girl’s face. Maybe not so young, then. She was close enough now to smell on the breeze. Lemons, oiled leather and soap.
“What can one Grey Warden do?” Her eyes flicked away, to the faint green clouds over the Frostbacks.
“Save the fucking world, if pressed!”
He had finally given her the right answer.
“A man after my own heart.” Taking her once-very fine glove off, she tucked it under an arm and offered him her pale hand. “Welcome to the Inquisition, Warden Blackwall.”
Hastily baring his own, he took it, surprised when she shook firmly. Out of long forgotten habit, he’d been about to bend low over her knuckles. She knew it too, and smiled as she clasped his scraped rough paw against her soft palm.
“I’ll warn you, it looks like we might have to. Save the world, I mean.”
The greedy, conniving man he’d tried to kill with cold, poverty, and solitude sat up and took notice. At the touch of this fair-haired, pale eyed Marcher woman who was out to save the world a shiver of dread caught his spine.
She would probably manage it. Afterward there would be bowing and scraping and mountains of tribute around Evelyn Trevelyan - and Thom wanted his share.