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At the entrance to the Anvallenim, Rook paused, holding up a hand. Neve stopped, her nerves strung taut. What was he waiting for? They had to get those passages clear. Proximity to the Anvallenim was why the shop as a Shadow Dragon safehouse in the first place; the passages ran deep under the earth, critical safe havens for people liberated from slavery or just Shadows who needed to lie low for a while.
“Darkspawn, all right,” Rook said in a low voice, tilting his head slightly. “Not a lot of them, I don’t think.”
“How can you be sure?” Bellara whispered.
He glanced back at them, flashing a tight smile. “Grey Warden, remember? This is what we’re for. I can sense them.”
Bellara’s lips rounded into a silent O. She nodded.
Neve let out a breath, trying to settle her nerves. She should have had more faith. She was wound a little too tightly about the fight ahead of them. Darkspawn turned up in the catacombs every so often, but they weren’t a common occurrence in Minrathous. The idea of them here, of them spreading blight in the city, had her nervy. It was too easy to imagine the grim fate of D’Meta’s Crossing; Minrathous would be an even greater feast.
“But also,” Rook said quietly, “I hear voices. Darkspawn don’t talk.”
Neve’s jaw tightened. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like whatever they found.
“They don’t?” Bellara whispered. “Then how do they –”
Rook cut her off with a quick gesture. “Later,” he said. “Stay clear of the ‘spawn. Attack them from range, don’t let them get close. Leave that to me.”
He waited until they both nodded, before opening the door. They emerged onto the upper platform, where a ladder led down into the channels of the Anvallenim themselves. A strange acrid smell caught Neve’s attention, along with the feel of magic at work. Peering into the lower channels, she recognized the hoods of Venatori immediately.
Venatori and darkspawn, together. Just what they needed.
Rook jumped into the pit and attacked, slamming his shield into the nearest darkspawn. He followed up with a blow that nearly severed its arm from its torso.
Well. Good enough. Neve turned her attention, and a blast of ice, on the Venatori. Rook knew darkspawn; she knew Venatori. She knew how to twist the air around them to slow them down, she set chills that stiffened their hands and slowed their casting, she muffled their voices with ice. Her attacks caught the darkspawn around them as well, but her ice didn’t hamper the creatures as much as she’d wish. It didn’t need to; Rook cut through them with brutal efficiency, somehow sliding his way among them with an almost eerie speed and grace, enchanted fire licking around the edge of his blade. Bellara’s arrows rained down on Venatori and darkspawn alike, carrying the tang of magic and lightning in their wake. Between the three of them, they made short work of their enemies, Neve and Bellara being more than adept enough to deal with the Venatori mages, while Rook chased down the darkspawn.
“Was that… the last?” Bellara asked when quiet finally fell.
Rook slashed the last fallen darkspawn across the throat and looked around. “Think so, I don’t sense any others near.”
“Then we did it. Oh!” she said, breathlessly. “We make a good team.”
Rook grinned at them, eyes bright. “We do.”
Neve smiled back, just for a moment, before she felt obliged to say: “Venatori and darkspawn, though… I don’t like that. If the Venatori can summon or control darkspawn…”
Rook’s smile evaporated in an instant. “Yes. That’s definitely not good news, but at least we cleared out your tunnels.”
“They’re not exactly my tunnels,” Neve said, missing the smile.
“Close enough,” he said. “Let’s tell the Viper.”
#
On their way to follow up Tarquin’s lead at the warehouse, Bellara said, “Rook? If the darkspawn don’t talk, how do they do… well… anything?”
He shrugged. “Don’t really know. A lot of Wardens have different theories, but nobody knows for sure. Darkspawn don’t seem to do a lot of thinking, in general. They seem to come into existence ready to attack, just waiting for a target. They don’t often have a lot of strategy.”
Bellara mulled that over, frowning. “It seems like that would be a weakness.”
“Sure, but they also don’t have much desire for self-preservation. They keep coming, no matter what. They don’t stop or get scared.” Rook sounded calmly matter-of-fact about this. “Fighting people is different. They do get scared, and you can use that. Darkspawn, you just have to kill.”
Neve said, “I’ve heard there’s sometimes a more powerful one. Is that right?” The Wardens she’d encountered in the past were habitually close-mouthed, so it was refreshing to collect some actual information on how darkspawn worked.
Rook nodded. “Sometimes you get one that the others seem to follow. We call them alphas. Still not sure how they communicate – they don’t talk, at least not in any way we can hear. Some kind of mental link, maybe, but I’ve never encountered a Warden who knows for sure.”
“Mm, that’s something.” Neve filed that away. She felt grimly certain that more darkspawn would cross their paths before long.
“You, um. Dismantled them really efficiently,” Bellara ventured.
“Practice,” Rook said cheerfully enough. “I thought I was good with a sword when I became a Warden, but there were a couple of scrapes early on that showed me I still had a lot to learn.”
“Like what?” Neve asked, curious. Rook had emerged from the fight with the darkspawn with no visible injuries, and talked about them with an easy confidence, more even than his usual. He was in his element here, a contrast from the uncertainty of everything else they’d been encountering.
“About a month in, the patrol I was assigned to ran into an ogre unexpectedly,” Rook said. “I waded in, a little too confident, and it moved a lot faster than I expected. It grabbed me and threw me into a wall, and the rest of the patrol had to take it down. The captain had a rather pointed talk with me, after.”
“And what did you learn?” Neve asked.
They’d reached the lift down to the dock level. Rook flashed her a smile before pulling the lever. “How not to get hit.”
#
“Was there something special? About not getting hit?” Bellara asked as they headed back to the shop, later.
Trust Bel to remember a bit of conversation and pursue it later, even with a few rounds of combat and ransacking a warehouse in between. Venatori had jumped them almost as soon as they’d emerged from the lift. The warehouse, once they’d found their way in, had proved to be a nest of more Venatori, summoning more darkspawn. They’d cut this scheme off at the root, at least, getting the relevant artifact out of Venatori hands and safely lodged with the Shadows. But the implications made Neve worry. The blighted gods favoring Venatori with artifacts and rituals that let them control darkspawn: a web of corruption that they were just plucking a few strands of. How many more Venatori knew this trick? What other dangerous rituals would the gods teach? How deep, and how wide, did the web go?
Not just another day in Minrathous; there were implications here that rippled wider.
Rook had bought bags of roasted nuts from a street vendor, and as soon as the aroma hit her nose, Neve realized she was ravenous. The three of them ate as they walked, their pace slower now that the job was done.
“Sorry, what?” Rook said, to Bellara’s question.
“You said your patrol captain taught you something?”
“Oh! Right.” Rook swallowed a mouthful. “We can sense the darkspawn, and we can learn to use that to fight them. You can sort of anticipate how they’re likely to move and take advantage of it, to dodge, or to hit them first. I learned how, with practice.” He hesitated, breaking stride for a moment. “I’m probably not meant to tell you things like this, honestly, but… we’ll probably have to fight more darkspawn, and it might help you to know.”
“Why aren’t you supposed to tell us?” Bellara asked.
Neve said, “The Wardens have their secrets, Bel. Plenty of them. Are you going to get in trouble for sharing, Rook?”
His eyes narrowed, considering. After a moment, he shrugged. “Don’t spread it around, and we won’t find out.”
“I’m good at secrets,” Neve said amiably. In her line of work, she found out all sorts of things. She wouldn’t last long without knowing when to keep things to herself.
“I’m not worried,” he returned.
“I won’t tell, either,” Bellara said.
Neve should have left it there, most likely, but something drove her to say: “You seem to have learned the lesson well.”
He let out an unexpected dry laugh. “I have my faults as a Warden, but I’m a fair hand at killing darkspawn, at least.”
Remembering the way he’d moved around and against the darkspawn, Neve fully believed the second half of the statement. The faults, she wondered about, but Rook, eating handfuls of nuts, was clearly disinclined to elaborate.
#
“The First Warden is here?”
Neve had seen Rook face down Arlathan Forest’s guardian constructs, murderous demons in Dock Town, and Venatori prison guards while barely batting an eye. She’d even seen him snap at a dragon and stand his ground. Only an hour ago, she’d been impressed with the easy mastery he’d brought to fighting the darkspawn. But the prospect of coming face to face with the head of his own order had Rook hunching his shoulders, shifting from one foot to the other, and looking like he wanted to drop straight through the floor. The visible discomfort was fascinating, and a little disturbing.
“Well,” he said, half to himself, “maybe we’ll get some help with the blight.”
“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself,” she said.
Rook’s shoulders tensed. He gave her a nervous smile, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“What’s the problem?” she asked, wary of whatever had him this wound up.
He glanced around. Tarquin and Ashur had started talking about something else already. Rook started toward the door, Neve and Bellara falling into step as he went. In a lowered voice, he said, “Possibly nothing.”
“But?” Neve prompted, unwilling to walk into a problem unwarned.
He grimaced. “The First Warden doesn’t like me.”
Neve took that in silently.
Bellara blinked. “Really? Why wouldn’t he like you?”
Rook’s eyes cut away, sheepishly. “It’s… kind of a long story.”
“A long story about…?” Neve trailed off invitingly. Make it appealing enough for someone to answer your question, and they usually would.
Rook looked fixedly at the ceiling. “I’m… often not exactly in my commanders’ good graces.”
Neve took that piece of information and turned it around in her mind like a gem. She dropped it into the mosaic of things she already knew about Rook and formed a hunch. “Let me guess: does it have anything to do with your charming disposition and habit of sarcasm?”
“Ouch.” Rook snorted and glanced her way, some of his tension dissipating. “Some of the officers may have taken exception.”
“Mm-hm.” Neve smiled, satisfied with her guess and amused. “Being flippant won’t get you far in the Imperial Legions, I’m told, and it’s hard to believe the Wardens would be more relaxed.”
“You get some grace if you’re good enough at killing darkspawn,” Rook said. “But I admit the word insubordination may have occurred.”
“Can’t imagine,” Neve said dryly.
“I also may not be great at respecting orders.” He scratched his ear, looking into the distance.
“I’m shocked to hear it,” Neve said, deadpan.
“Did Varric tell you how I came to be working with him?”
“Saved a village from darkspawn, he said,” Neve replied promptly. “Wasn’t sure how much he was embellishing.”
“It’s more or less true. What he might not have said is that my orders were to hold firm and wait for reinforcements, not lead a strike force into the Deep Roads. Only, we’d been waiting on reinforcements for days already, and the darkspawn kept whittling away at our defenses. I wasn’t sure how much longer any of us could hold out. So.” He shrugged, spreading his hands. “It wasn’t the first time I’d irritated my commanders, but they couldn’t exactly discipline me with the whole village celebrating. Fortunately, Varric came along and offered an alternative.”
Bellara had been following their exchange with her eyes, her brow furrowed, and put in, “Isn’t it strange they’d leave you in charge at all? If they were already not happy with you?”
“Oh, they didn’t.” Rook grimaced. “The unit captain had been killed and the second-in-command was down with a bad fever, and I was the next most senior Warden available.”
Bellara winced. “Oh.”
“So that’s why the First Warden doesn’t like you,” Neve said. Rook’s uneasiness made sense now, and his story didn’t leave her sanguine about this meeting herself.
“Well, that’s the short version, anyway.” He glanced at her sideways. “I thought I did have a charming disposition, though.”
“Charming enough,” she allowed, with a smile. She certainly wasn’t going to fault him for saving lives over following a bad order.
He brightened for a moment at that and then sighed. “I suppose we should go find out what he has to say.”
“We’ll wait outside,” Neve said when they reached the Cobbled Swan. Rook nodded and took a deep breath. Jaw set and shoulders squared, he went in alone.
Bellara said, “Neve, do you think…”
Neve put a finger to her lips. She’d positioned herself to catch sound coming out of the door. Bellara nodded, visibly biting her tongue, and tilted her head toward the door as well.
Fortunately, the First Warden had a voice fit to carry across battlefields. Neve bit her lip as she listened to Rook’s increasingly frantic attempts to get the dangerous reality of the situation across to the First Warden. He was trying so hard, his voice tense and rising, and he was obviously arguing with a wall.
Would the First Warden have accepted the message from a different messenger? Neve couldn’t be sure.
Bellara looked at Neve with an anxious question in her eyes: should we do something? As the First Warden ordered Rook’s arrest, Neve gripped her wand tighter. She was going to have to make the call whether to step in now, or go for reinforcements.
While she was still wavering, a new voice cut into the argument. Neve recognized Dorian Pavus in an instant, and her grip relaxed. A fortuitous intervention… but not just luck. She’d wager anything that Ashur had tipped him off as well. She hadn’t seen him go in, though; somehow he must have arrived ahead of them and lurked in a corner of the Swan. Also: intriguing that he had some kind of leverage on the Wardens. She supposed it paid to be friends with the Inquisition’s spymaster.
Rook came out with Dorian, who flashed her a dazzling smile and proclaimed, “And so I deliver him into your capable hands, Neve Gallus.”
Neve accepted that with a wave. He strode off, looking pleased with himself. They’d undoubtedly see him back at the shop later.
Rook stood still, his whole posture stiff, eyes fixed on some distant point across the harbor.
“I was wondering if I should be planning a jailbreak,” Neve said.
He shook himself visibly. When he turned back toward Neve and Bellara, he’d put on a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You’d do that? For me?”
“Sure,” she said, exchanging glances with Bellara.
“We’d figure something out,” Bellara said thoughtfully. “We might have to go back to for Lucanis and Harding, though…”
Probably the Viper would have lent them some Shadows, in a pinch. “Not letting them carry you off in chains, promise,” Neve said, eyeing Rook’s demeanor.
He started walking, clipped and fast, obviously eager to get some distance in case the First Warden changed his mind. “Thanks,” he said as they joined in.
Neve glanced over her shoulder, but didn’t see anyone following them. “That bit about your already weak mind was a low blow, though, I thought.”
Rook groaned, missing a step. “You heard all of that, huh?”
Neve laughed. “The man’s voice does carry. A little magisterial intervention often solves the problem in Minrathous, though. No jailbreak needed.”
“I see that.” Rook looked toward her, his eyes still shadowed. “Do you know the magister?”
“Pavus? A little. We run in different circles, aside from the Shadows.” Dorian Pavus threw the occasional job Neve’s way, but they didn’t exactly socialize. The social whirl of the progressive side of high society was still a long way from Dock Town. “He’s on the right side of things.”
Rook nodded, silent.
They continued for a block before Bellara said, “So… that didn’t exactly go well, did it?”
“It went well in the sense that I’m not in a Warden dungeon,” Rook said. “Not much help coming from that quarter, though.”
“Any other prospects?” Neve asked. “We could still use more help with the blight.”
Rook grimaced. “Maybe. I know a few people who might be able to help. I’d hate to get them on the wrong side of the First Warden, but there’s not much choice.”
“Probably not,” Neve agreed. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as they walked. He still wore something of a hunted look, keeping up a faster pace than usual. “You know he’s a blowhard. Too set in his ways. The truth is too messy for someone like that.”
Rook’s steps slowed. “I have tried ever since I joined to be a good Warden,” he said, voice low and intense. “And it never… we don’t seem to see eye to eye on what that means. But I owe him at least a little respect.”
“Mm.” Neve had her own thoughts about the necessity of respect, but she’d let it go.
“I’m sure you are a good Warden,” Bellara said earnestly.
Rook sighed. “Thanks, Bellara.”
On impulse, Neve reached out and caught his hand, giving a quick squeeze. She added, “I also know who I think is doing more about the current crisis.”
He broke stride and turned toward her, startled. As their gazes held, the tense line of his shoulders eased a little, and finally returned a real smile. “Thanks. Really. Both of you. It means a lot.”
“Any time,” Neve said. His hand was warm, even through the half-gloves he wore. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Bellara looking at them with eyebrows raised. Abruptly self-conscious, she let go.
Rook didn’t seem perturbed. He started walking again, brisk but not tense and harried, talking with Bellara about nothing in particular. Now Neve was the one who was wound up, and it was her own fault, for caring a little too much about his feelings. If she wasn’t careful, Rook and his brilliant smile were going to be trouble.
She let herself fall back a step to settle herself and cast another look behind them, but no grim Wardens emerged out of the crowd to seize them. Call that a win for the day. The rest, the gods and their schemes, her own heart – those problems she’d deal with later.