As regional strife gathered like a storm, and the effects of the Rifts cast chaos as naturally as rain falling, the Inquisition grew. Freeholders from Ferelden fleeing the battles between templars and mages which raged unstemmed where no greater forces could bring them to heel; peasants from Orlais desperate to escape the deepening shadow of the War of Lions.
And from time to time, deserters and refugees from the warring factions themselves: mages who saw the fear they sowed, the creatures they were becoming in their own battles. Templars disillusioned with their corrupt leadership and addiction. Soldiers and mercenaries and conscripts sick of wading through blood.
But the roads to Skyhold were treacherous, the mountain passes uncertain in harder seasons. Slavers and bandits plagued whatever pathways were most common, and traveling the roads to clear them was among the worst routine duties assigned to Inquisitors.
And today, the Western road through the mountains was scattered with bodies.
-------
Several of them were peppered with arrows. Others had been hacked or smashed. A few horses lay dead, or whinnying shrilly in their last throes. One of them doing so was still harnessed to a companion, still as stone, kept thrashing on its side by the weight. Two bodies, still living, huddled behind the tipped-over cart still connected to them.
One of them was a human child, not even into his teens, hyperventilating and clutching his bleeding head, too stunned to keen. The other was an elven man, armored in old-looking chain mail and boiled leather in the Orlesian style, steadily nocking pale-fletched arrows to a pitted bow and turning to fire with slow care but dubious precision at the knot of men who advanced. The killers were taking care to check the bodies they passed for life, and dragged those who might be back towards the treeline from which they'd clearly planned their trap and attack.
When it was certain the little defense he'd put up wouldn't amount to anything more than a weak distraction, he leaned towards the boy, hissing, "Boy! Boy, look up, start moving, start crawling for the trees--"
there they lie, with dust upon their eyes
And from time to time, deserters and refugees from the warring factions themselves: mages who saw the fear they sowed, the creatures they were becoming in their own battles. Templars disillusioned with their corrupt leadership and addiction. Soldiers and mercenaries and conscripts sick of wading through blood.
But the roads to Skyhold were treacherous, the mountain passes uncertain in harder seasons. Slavers and bandits plagued whatever pathways were most common, and traveling the roads to clear them was among the worst routine duties assigned to Inquisitors.
And today, the Western road through the mountains was scattered with bodies.
-------
Several of them were peppered with arrows. Others had been hacked or smashed. A few horses lay dead, or whinnying shrilly in their last throes. One of them doing so was still harnessed to a companion, still as stone, kept thrashing on its side by the weight. Two bodies, still living, huddled behind the tipped-over cart still connected to them.
One of them was a human child, not even into his teens, hyperventilating and clutching his bleeding head, too stunned to keen. The other was an elven man, armored in old-looking chain mail and boiled leather in the Orlesian style, steadily nocking pale-fletched arrows to a pitted bow and turning to fire with slow care but dubious precision at the knot of men who advanced. The killers were taking care to check the bodies they passed for life, and dragged those who might be back towards the treeline from which they'd clearly planned their trap and attack.
When it was certain the little defense he'd put up wouldn't amount to anything more than a weak distraction, he leaned towards the boy, hissing, "Boy! Boy, look up, start moving, start crawling for the trees--"