The lighting collided into one genlock and quickly fanned out to the other darkspawn in a sparkling web, lighting up the determined faces of guards and militia alike as they charged forward, blades held high and cries of victory on their lips. Arrows and bolts rained down from the heavens and warriors fell on the darkspawn with a fury Lee had never seen before. Steel glinted and shields crashed; in their wake followed the squelching sound of bodies being torn asunder and a wretched, diseased smell.
The battle was short, brutal, and incredibly anticlimactic. Where once had stood a small handful of darkspawn now lay a steaming pile of limbs and piecemeal armor. It was horrifying and no matter how she tried the mage could simply not tear her eyes away. Body shaking she stood still and silent, face pale and gaze blank, until an arm reached out and latched onto her shoulder. Flinching she twisted round to meet the solemn stare of one of the few knights who had been in the square, brow furrowing in confusion as he jerked his head once in the direction of the lake.
Straining her eyes she looked in that direction but could not find what the man was gesturing towards. Turning back uncertainly, head cocked to the side, prepared to ask what he wanted she paused when he sighed and raised his other arm up to her nose and pointed. Going cross-eyed the mage jerked back, blinking, before following the line of his arm down and past the single extended digit. Grip still tight on her shoulder his head lowered down, close enough that she could feel his breath brushing across her ear, and whispered, “There. One of yours?”
She had no idea what the knight was talking about, nothing was there, or at least nothing that she could see. Taking a deep breath she took one step forward, closer to the chaos milling around the downed darkspawn, as she tried to catch sight of whatever or whoever it was that the knight beside her was so intent on pointing out. Her mounting frustration at her own inability was painted across her face and the raspy chuckle drifting from the man next to her wasn’t helping her mood. Was this not some serious issue that he was trying to point out to her?
One blink later there was a mass darker than the others in the middle of the shadows that continued to grow larger by the second. Slowly the form of a helm appeared and then the shoulders under that and… the shape of the body was all wrong. Drifting forward in a daze her features melted into shock as, what had to be, Ser Talfryn approached. Nestled in his arms was a limp golden haired body. Hilda her mind cried, Hilda had fallen. The only thing keeping her in place, keeping her standing, was the hand that remained locked around her shoulder.
Throat catching on little more than air she staggered forward when the form lurking behind Ser Talfryn came into view. Standing as tall and proud as Lee had ever seen her, with hair that somehow still managed to gleam like sunlight in the shadows, was Hilda. Walking. Alive. Well. The question then was whose body was clutched so securely to Ser Talfryn’s breast? It was answered shortly as the crowd parted, painfully silent with every eye downturned in respect, and gave way to the knight and the awful load he carried. A face that Lee had seen rich with life and vigor only moments earlier before the battle now lay slack in death.