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Bull swung his battle ax in a wide arc, catching at least two Vints in its deadly path. Of course, the bastards couldn't wait. He'd been waiting on the coast, in this very camp, for over a week, hoping someone from the Inquisition would show. He knew they were in the area. Their camp was just up the hill from his. The Vints, however, had minds of their own.
Everything had been fine. Everyone had been minding their own business. Who could say what had happened, but something had spooked the Tevinter bastards and now they were in his camp before the Inquisition had a chance to send their envoy. His only hope now was that someone up the hill would see the fray and report back to their superiors what had happened.
He had been hoping they would send their "Herald." He was actively curious about her. Was she really what his sources claimed her to be? He took his frustration and disappointment out on the nearest Vint, sidestepping the oncoming charge of another. Bastard Vints couldn't wait another day… Was it too much to ask, just once, for things to go as planned?
A sudden stream of fire shot past him, igniting and exploding a Vint he failed to notice behind him, followed by the warm closeness of a shimmering barrier wrapped tightly around him. There was a brief moment of confusion in him. Dalish wasn't a fire mage, and the barrier didn't carry her distinctive flavor with it, either. Instead of the light, cool, earthy quality that Dalish's barriers carried, this one was warm, with a faint tang of salt, sulphur, and drakestone. There was also an edge to it. Who ever had cast it had a warrior's soul. That in and of itself was unique, and roused his attention. Whoever it was, it was a mage with the heart of a dragon.
An inappropriate shiver ran down his spine as he finished dispatching the burning Vint now before him. The thrill of battle always aroused him. There was nothing new to that. But this was different. Something in the warm caress of the barrier that was even now beginning to fade felt intimate. He looked up, away from the shore and up the rise they were sheltering in, to where the mage had moved, just outside the perimeter of the battle while continuing to rain fire down into the fray.
His breath caught. Just up the hill, staff whirling in fierce, graceful arcs, her hands wreathed in flames and armored horns glinting with brassy fire in the veiled sunlight, was the Herald. Of course, she just had to be a red-head. In that moment, the battle ended. They had won.
But he was lost.
Having lived outside the Qun for so long, and with at least one mage in his company, he had begun to doubt the practices of his people, of their treatment of mages. Dalish had shown him that much, at least. Never once had the elf given him the impression that she would steal his soul. Now, however, in one fiery moment, he thought he understood the fears of his people.
She was an unbound mage, and a Tal-Vashoth. Everything about her was the very antithesis of everything he was supposed to be. He pushed aside the inappropriate thoughts, shelved the brief spark of fear, and blamed the sudden heat he felt as an unusually intense pang of battle lust. He turned to his second in command, decisively giving orders as if his entire world hadn't just shifted.
No. There was no way he was going to admit, that in one brief, fiery moment, without even a single word said, he had lost himself to a red-headed saarabas.