A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

Foolhardy

20 Cloudreach, 9:42

Cullen waited in the back of the group, where Antonia had assigned both him and Phoenix. She stood at the front, with Dorian, Varric, and the Iron Bull ranged just behind her. Across the rubble of the courtyard he could see one of the Red Templars. With all the red lyrium sticking out of him, he looked more like an abomination than a man, and Cullen wondered what it had all been for—the Templars were more like mages than the mages, these days.

Then Antonia took off, her greataxe raised above her head. She sprinted across the courtyard, and was leaping in the air, bringing the weapon down on the Templar's head, before anyone else could even get moving.

The Iron Bull growled, "Not again," and took off after her. Dorian sent a blast of flame at another abomination-like thing on the ramparts, and Varric and Bianca focused on that one as well. Cullen, left to himself, followed the Iron Bull, Phoenix at his heels.

Antonia and the Iron Bull were surrounded by Red Templars now, some abominations, some not. Cullen knocked one away with his shield and stabbed another one with a sword to the gut, just under the breastplate. One thing he knew very well was the weaknesses in the Templar armor. Phoenix's sharp teeth were nipping at the Templars' heels, and he hoped the dog would remember his training and keep on the other side from the fighters so they wouldn't accidentally catch him with their swords.

When the last of the little knot was down, Cullen looked for Antonia, but she was already on the stairs, jumping on top of a stack of crates and leaping, the axe coming down on the head of a Templar abomination.

Cullen found another target in the corner of the courtyard, and headed that direction with the Iron Bull. In a few more minutes, those last two were down, and Cullen wiped his sword clean and put it away.

"Does she always do that?" he asked the Iron Bull.

"Oh, yeah. The boss isn't one to hang back."

Cullen could have done without that information. He imagined his nightmares would have some new horrors when they got home and she went into the field without him again.

"And she doesn't give you orders?"

"Well ... she used to give some, but the four of us have worked together enough, we know. Varric picks off the ones on the edges, Dorian keeps an eye on us and blasts the guys with fire, and I back her up and try to get between her and anyone trying to kill her."

Antonia came toward them slowly, stopping to search the grounds for anything interesting she could pick up. "Not bad, eh?" she said to Cullen, her brown eyes sparkling.

It came to Cullen that perhaps he was getting too old for the front lines—he no longer looked on combat as exhilarating. It was a rare moment when the ten years' age difference between them seemed like a lot. Most of the time, he forgot about it entirely, but right now he felt every day of it.

She was looking Phoenix over, praising the dog for coming through the combat without a scratch. "Now, just like that again next time, okay?" she said.

Cullen bit back all the remarks he wanted to make. She did this all the time; these were the people who watched her back, and they loved her. They would get her through if anyone could ... and it was probably far too late to change the way she fought. Her personality was to charge, to be in front in the fight; asking her to be more cautious would probably only cause her to doubt herself, and that could be deadly in combat. He would wait and address the issue on the training ground, once they were safely back at Skyhold.

"What's next, Inquisitor?" he asked.

"Farther in, Commander. Sadly, it looks as though Samson has already pulled out."

"It does look that way." He was angry at that—he was smarter than Samson, and tired of being outplayed by the man.

"Let's go see what he left behind."

Just inside the door of the temple, they fought a giant lyrium monster with a huge arm that he kept bringing down on or near Antonia. She was staggering, bleeding from somewhere, but the greataxe kept flashing.

"Potion, boss!" the Iron Bull called.

She ignored him, slicing at the thing again, and was sent flying backward, skidding along the ground on her back. Up again, she charged at him, her head lowered. Her face was covered in blood from a wound Cullen couldn't see.

"Potion, Antonia!" Dorian shouted to her.

If she heard, she gave no sign of it. At last, the big monster caught her in the side, knocking her into the building. Before Varric in his turn could urge a potion on her, she fumbled one out of her belt and drank it down, shaking her head as it spread healing through her.

Cullen was seriously regretting the decision to come along right now. She fought as though she had nothing to lose, and it sent a chill through him. He had been in combat before, a number of times ... but never with someone he loved. He wondered how Fenris and Hawke had done it so often. Perhaps having had so much practice, they had learned to rely on each other. But he wasn't sure he could handle much more—he was no longer certain which was worse, letting her go and not knowing what could happen, or watching her dare death with such audacity and waiting for the fatal blow to strike her.

He shook the thoughts off. She was good at what she did—he had watched her in the training ring, and he knew she knew what she was doing. He had to allow for the possibility that he was over-reacting out of his love for her. He would have to trust her the rest of the way.

Inside, the building was half destroyed. "Samson must have ordered his men to sack his headquarters so we couldn't," he said with disappointment.

"Still, we've dealt him a blow," Antonia said. "Let's get rid of these guys."

She was off to a knot of Templars and their abominations. Dorian's fire spells worked a bit too well—it was hard to see through the flames he created—but as the knot Antonia was fighting seemed to be all but down, Cullen saw another group on the other side of the room, and he charged them, shield and sword working in familiar concert. Only after he saw Antonia leap up next to him and heard the Iron Bull's yell and Phoenix's growl did he realize he had just done exactly what he had been criticizing Antonia for.

When the foes were all down, the Iron Bull clapped Cullen heartily on the back, sending him staggering. "See? You're getting it, Commander. Few more of these combats, you'll be as foolhardy as she is."

"Bull, I thought you said it wasn't possible to be as foolhardy as I am," Antonia said, grinning.

"I'm rethinking the position."

Dorian's flames died down around them, and they all took out water skins, drinking deeply and rinsing the bits of red lyrium off of skin and hair. Dagna had given them an ointment she said should shield them from the effects, but none of them wanted to push that too far.

"What do you think is in there?" Antonia asked Cullen, gesturing toward the door ahead. The inside of the temple looked and sounded deserted; it didn't seem as though there were any more Templars left.

"Hopefully something they forgot," he said grimly.