The Mournful King

II. Arduinna

If the sleep of the innocent was peaceful, Andraste was no innocent. The Silent sat near the fire with her spare blanket around his shoulders, watching her toss and turn. It surprised him that she wasn't more careful in this day and age who she slept near, but then again, what did she have to fear from him? False dawn crept up the eastern horizon as she whispered in her sleep and struggled against whatever dreams plagued her. He turned his attention to her gear after a few more minutes. None of it was anything like he expected from a knight other than the lance and the horse.

Her armor was more finely articulated than anything he had ever seen in the east. He'd surreptitiously picked up a gauntlet in the early hours of the morning and admired the lightness of the metal as well as the delicate, almost fluid nature of the joints. He wasn't certain how it would hold up to punishment, but the countless faint scars on the armor suggested it was well used. Her shield was an elongated hexagonal piece of some strange black material that wasn't wood or hide with a reinforced metal boss at the center, but it weighed a fraction of what he might have suspected. She had two swords. One he recognized as a Talinese estoc, a long and slender, though rigid, blade with a diamond cross-section designed to puncture armor with thrusts instead of cuts, while the other was a shorter and broader leaf-shaped blade that tapered to a lethal point. He imagined both would be quite brutal to be on the receiving end of. Her horse's armor had been carefully laid on the ground, as light and maneuverable as her own.

However polite and friendly the woman seemed, her gear spoke of an owner who was a formidable foe on the battlefield. The Silent knew his way around a blade, but he had never pursued war with such an enthusiasm. There were other things in life that had once held his interest far more.

"You think very loudly."

The Silent frowned and looked over at his new acquaintance. He couldn't read her face in the low light, but he could see the gleam of open eyes reflecting back the glow of coals. He stirred the fire up carefully, recapturing the light. Her look was questioning even though she knew he couldn't speak, as if she was expecting him to give some kind of answer.

He shrugged.

Andraste smiled faintly and sat up. He had the feeling that she was used to being up at this hour. A professional soldier or a mercenary, then. He continued to eye her armor and weaponry.

After a few moments of dedicated silence, he felt the curiosity make itself known and pointed questioningly at the gear.

"I was a soldier." There was a certain self-consciousness in her smile. "I suppose it would be foolish of me to expect no one to notice. I hope your friend didn't take too much of a fright."

He shook his head sharply at the mention of Eamon. He had no real love for the lad, even if he was better than Carrig. The Silent was past the point where he considered himself in need of friends. Anyone he allowed close would only become something else for Gader'el to twist to his own ends.

"Not a friend, then?"

The Silent's laughter was a sharp, humorless bark. He reached out to her shield and tapped the marking in the center, a stylized weeping eye painted in grey. It was not much different than the symbol of a penitent in the east. Before she could answer, a spine-tingling howl split the air. He grabbed for the shorter sword and clutched it tight to his body. It made him feel safer, the illusion that he could go to his death with the courage he had lacked everywhere else.

"Relax," Andraste said as she shrugged off her blanket and rose to her feet. "It's just Mus."

He raised an eyebrow skeptically even as the hair on the back of his neck started to stand on end. Whatever it was, it was close and coming closer.