Chapter Text
She’s had him at an advantage from the very first. She knows him and knowledge, as they say, is power.
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He stands next to Corypheus high on the hill overlooking Haven, every bit the conquering general at the side of his god to any who would care to look. She does. He knows she must, because they all do. They all see what Corypheus has made him: invincible, legend, raw power in a shell of lyrium.
Ankle deep in snow, frigid mountain wind blowing in his face and still he burns. So will the village, if the Magister has his way.
Help them. Stop this while you still can.
The thoughts are easier to push away now that he is here, now that he sees them scampering like rats from the approaching army. His army. His Templars, red as fire, strong as tempered steel. Samson wonders what sort of man that makes him now. No man at all, most like, but he hasn’t been that for years. It doesn’t matter what he is anymore, only what he does. The whole world will burn once this is over.
For now, they scream. Frantic, as they run to their precious Chantry, like that will save them. Closer, outside the gates, the voices are different: stern, determined. Orders. Soldiers. Samson’s eyes have always been good, but the red has made them better and if he squints, he can make out a few suits of Templar armor among the rabble. His gut clenches, lip curls to see them there yoked to this new organization risen from the bloating corpse of the Chantry rather that with their brethren, with him.
She must be down there, too, then, this Herald of Andraste, though he can’t guess which of the mages she might be. Whatever else may be said of her, she is not as conspicuous as Corypheus. And there, in front…
Rutherford.
He falters, then, drives the point of his sword into the snow. Cullen’s presence is more of a surprise than it should be, and Samson wonders why he expected different. It is the reason that Samson stands beside the Elder One.
No, the problem is less that Samson sees Rutherford and more that Cullen will notice him. Red eyes and thinning hair aside, he is easier to recognize than most of his men, these days. Once that is done…he wonders how long it will be before Cullen has blabbed the whole sordid story. How many seconds will it take to recount the years of mistakes that have led him here?
There is no doubt in Samson’s mind, though, that Cullen will tell, if he survives. And he does, of course. Runs away like the rest of them, leaving their Herald to clean his mess. It’s a position with which Samson himself is intimately familiar.
He can pick her out now easily: she is the one doing the work. He remains at his post high above the fray, watches her engage his men. For all the time he has spent around mages, he has not often had occasion to truly watch them fight. There’s an anger about her, barely-contained, but controlled, something in the way she sets her jaw and furrows her brow that he recognizes. Her hair is red: not a tinged brown or a sweet strawberry but rather fire and darkness and he cannot tell where she ends and the flames she hurls begin.
His Templars fall before her little party, smoldering heaps lying in the snow, and Samson grits his teeth. He hoists Certainty onto his shoulder. The blade scrapes against his armor but stays steady as he descends. This battle is not yet won and his place is on the field with his army.
They win, in the end, although the Herald’s avalanche buries more men than Samson was prepared to lose. When the spring thaw comes, he will see them properly attended to, every last one. In the meantime, he will have to recruit.
It is some weeks before he discovers how incomplete the victory was: the Herald lives. Somehow, miraculously, she lives and Corypheus is furious. The Inquisition is weakened, but it persists and that, more than anything, gives Samson pause.
They are, at the very least, lucky. Luckier than he has ever been. He dares not allow himself to consider that it is more than that.
Either way, he’ll have to be careful. Corypheus is no strategist. The Magister is too high and mighty for that, his head filled with dreams of godhood. Not delusions, mind you. Samson is not devout, but the Elder One is as like a god as anything he has ever seen. Maybe even the kind of god Samson could get behind, if he were the sort-all the power, none of the promises. Samson has no use for this life, let alone anything that might come after. A proper death for him and his men, that’s the only boon he seeks. Corypheus offers no more than that.
To die properly, though, they’ll need to put up a good fight and to do that, he needs to know what he’s up against. They have seen his army fight. They have Rutherford, which means they know more about Samson than he knows about them. It is their power and his weakness and he cannot let that advantage stand.
A few well-placed inquiries are all he needs to make a good start. He may not be a learned man, has not studied the way Rutherford has, or their lady ambassador, but Samson knows well enough that to understand the Inquisition, he need only understand her Inquisitor.
H\e pores over the reports as they come in.
A mage, to begin, thought that was easy enough to see on the battlefield.
A Libertarian, but that was clear the moment she snatched the rebel mages from Corypheus’ grasp. It means she’s angry. Samson’s never met a Libertarian who wasn’t. It also means Rutherford may have less sway than he expected. Once a Templar, always a Templar, after all. Samson should know.
Ostwick. A fellow Marcher, then.
Minor nobility, though there is no telling how much that will affect things. If she is like most of the mages they brought to the Circle in Kirkwall, she hasn’t spent much time at home. Had her parents turned their back on her, he wonders. Perhaps not. Youngest child, so they wouldn’t have lost an heir, and besides that, she was still in Ostwick when the Circles fell. That would take a few strings pulled, even without family in the Templars.
The reports are interesting reading and enlightening enough, but he needs more. Samson can make educated guesses as much as the next person, but they’re just guesses. Her deeds say more, as do the people she gathers to her cause and she runs the gamut there. Grey Wardens, Red Jennies, a Qunari mercenary company, even an Altus, if he has the truth of it. She’s resourceful, then, same as he.
By the time she thwarts their plans at the Winter Palace, Samson comes to feel that they are on a level playing field. Near as he can tell, there is nothing she cares for, nothing save fairness for those loyal to her. Her judgements have shown that she is not above mercy, or a sort of mercy at least, and Samson thinks he can use that.
Then she finds Maddox.
Once they disrupt his lyrium supply lines, he knows they will come for him. He would, were things different, were he with the Inquisition and another Templar in his place at Corypheus’ side. A small contingent of volunteers to stay behind and destroy the camp, that is all he intends. Maddox is not meant to be with them.
Samson does not notice his absence until they stop for the night, but by then it is too late. The Inquisition is hot on his heels and now is not the time to risk a fight. They have only just finished restoring their ranks after Haven and the corruption seems to be working faster these days. He cannot risk losing more men. All he can do is hope that she is lenient with him. Maddox deserves more mercy than any.
They retreat from the Shrine of Dumat to the south, towards the Arbor Wilds, and Samson keeps an ear to the ground for news out of Skyhold. Judgements, executions, anything, but nothing comes. Whether that bodes well for Maddox, he dares not wonder, dares not hope.
The road to the Wilds is long and dull. The villagers they pass leave them a wide berth and there are too few skirmishes for Samson’s liking. He craves the physicality of battle. The weight of Certainty in his hand lightens the weight of unease that has settled in his mind.
The weight of guilt.
Maddox is gone, by no doing but Samson’s own. Though he will not admit it to himself, he knows it to be true. Lost to death or the Inquisition, the outcome is the same.
Maddox was the most loyal of them all, if a tranquil could be said to be loyal. Does loyalty stem from emotion or something more practical? Samson cannot be sure. Tranquility is a loss whose true nature he will never understand. Since they left Kirkwall with Corypheus, there are many conversations he has had with Maddox, many things he has seen the tranquil do that cannot be explained away by logic or reason. From anyone else, he would think them gestures of affection, of friendship, perhaps, but they are not, cannot be, for Maddox has been stripped of those things. It once gave Samson pause to think that care could be so easily approximated without emotion.
Now he simply misses them, misses the connection, whatever its source.
More than that, he worries that he has given away too much. Despite his skills as a craftsman, Maddox’s place with the Red Templars was one borne of Samson’s own regret. Surely Cullen recognized the name in the letters that must have fallen into the Inquisition’s hands. He would have realized then and he would be a poor commander indeed not to share his insight with the Inquisitor. Although it is Samson’s own fault, although he might have done the same had the opportunity presented itself, there is a feel of violation to it.
It is one thing to know the skeleton of a person’s life, the places, the events. That Samson was prepared for. He sought out the same about his enemy, after all. But the motivations, the feelings… That is too much. It is vulnerability, a weak point left bare now. He can only hope the Inquisitor does not realize it as such.
He is not so lucky.
The Arbor Wilds are wet and sticky and hot as sin, but Samson scarcely notices. Nothing is hotter than the burn of the red. The fire within his armor has faded, but he remembers it. His men burn still, will burn until it consumes them. Until then, they will fight.
They are invincible as they cut a path through the old temple and the elves that guard it. They are fine warriors, but they are no match for his Templars. Their deaths are good ones, though, Samson makes sure of that. It is either the elves or Corypheus’ cause that dies here today and Samson’s job is to ensure it is not the latter.
His blood pulses in anticipation. The Well is close and soon his duty will be upon him. It is a fitting one, he thinks. Vessel for the Well of Sorrows. He is empty enough these days and he is more than practiced at taking sorrow and turning it to power. It would be a lie to say the knowledge does not appeal to him, as well. He is ready to accept whatever will come. All that remains is to keep the Inquisition from his prize.
She catches up to him just shy of their mutual goal. Up close like this, she is taller than he expects, pretty in a harsh, angular sort of way. The anger from Haven is gone, replaced by a stony poise as she stalks towards him.
Unexpected as her party’s arrival is, Samson manages to keep his head and play his part. It wouldn’t do for word to get around that Corypheus’ general is a disbeliever, after all. His men rely on this charade and he will carry on with it until every last enemy lies dead before them. So he preens and postures and shakes his fist at the sky and the Inquisition until he almost believes the rhetoric himself.
Quietly, she stands, watching and listening until he pauses and then she says it: Maddox is dead, by his own hand no less.
The cold chill that washes over Samson is an odd sensation. He’s almost forgotten the feeling, wrapped in his armor like this. It shakes his balance and his confidence, but he recovers, sings the praises of his god and his Templars, as if Maddox is nothing to him.
Turning, he looks up at the Well. He must get there. She banters back at him with a truth he already knows: he is nothing to the Elder One. The respect and power Corypheus has granted him does nothing to change that. They are paltry gifts for a being who aims to rule on both sides of the veil. He refutes it for the sake of his men, but it is true nonetheless. Corypheus cares no more for them than the Chantry did.
He is ready to be done with this, though, and he swells, throbs with power and heat, and his armor flashes red and hot.
She smirks, then, lifts her hand and Samson realizes he was wrong. The anger is there still, better hidden than before but lurking still behind her eyes. Then he sees nothing. Pain lances through him as his armor sparks. He falls to his knees, stunned and breathless, and he feels the jolt when he hits the stone.
He is cold.
He is weak.
He has failed.
Panic rises up in him and he shouts. He screams, desperate without the pulse of the lyrium surrounding him, hot and safe. This feeling he knows-cold and clammy, shaking, and if he closes his eyes he could be back in Lowtown, curled in a corner, arms wrapped around himself to make the quaking stop. Getting to his feet, he sways and draws his blade. He will not fall here.
There is little of the actual battle he remembers. The rush of the fight helps to calm the need rising within him, but he is not used to working this hard for his swings, nor to the sting of his enemies’ attacks. He hurls Certainty with little finesse, lashing out at whatever he can reach, driven only by momentum and instinct.
One by one, his men fall, most to her Qunari’s war axe, the rest to the three mages. Samson manages to knock the elven one to the ground, holds the pommel of his blade at the ready until he knows the mage will not rise again without assistance. The Tevinter showers Samson in sparks and electricity but they do little to his already-frayed nerves. He waits a beat too long to turn and is rewarded with a heavy blow between the shoulders from the Qunari. The shattered remnants of his armor deflect most of it, but it is enough to force him to his hands and knees.
Samson gasps, the breath knocked from him. Another blow to his back and his vision swims.
The Well, he thinks, the Well. It is all over now, an ignominious end to his pitiful life.
Darkness washes over him.