The Enchanter and The Lion

Chapter 27 - The Battle for Haven - Pt 3

They fought through a few dozen Templars to make it to the remaining trebuchet. She cranked it back, Cassandra secured it, and Bull loaded it. She turned to her friends, "Alright, I'll wait for Cullen's signal. I want you all to get moving and meet up with the retreat."  

Dorian started to try and argue with her, but Maeve held up her hand, saying, "There's a mine shaft 200 yards that way," she pointed, having seen it as they fought their way here. "I fire, run and get in there, and I'll meet up with you." 

Bull grinned, "Knew you'd have a plan, Boss." 

She smiled and didn't tell him that it had been a last minute one.

"Maker go with you," Cassandra said as they gripped arms. 

"Do try not to die, my dear," Dorian said with a wry grin, "I was just starting to like you." 

Maeve chuckled and hugged him briefly. "I'll see you all on the other side."

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She was pacing in front of the trebuchet, watching the far mountain, when she heard the dragon. Shit! she thought as readied her staff and threw up a barrier. She was scanning the sky, when the creature emerged from darkness beyond, stalking across the ground toward her. It was sickly reddish-purple in color. It lifted its head and roared, saliva dripping from its fangs. 

Maeve didn't wait for it to make the first move. She threw a barrage at its throat and the creature screamed in rage, as it fixed its eyes on her. 

Ok, maybe that wasn't the best idea, she thought. 

A giant set of claws swiped toward her. She ducked and rolled under it and threw a frost bolt at the side of its head followed by another barrage. She was readying another bolt when the tail came across her left side, destroying her barrier and sending her flying across the snow back toward the trebuchet.  

She laid there briefly trying to remember how to draw breath. She struggled to her feet and put her barrier back up, not taking her eyes off the beast. 

"Enough!" shouted a voice from behind her. 

Her blood froze. It was the voice from the vision at the Temple. She turned slowly, putting one eye on the creature - the Elder One - while she tried to keep the other on the dragon. 

"Pretender!" he called her. "You toy with forces beyond your ken. No more!"

"And I assume you're here to enlighten me?" she said acerbically. 

"Mortals beg for truth they cannot have. It is beyond what you are. Know me - exalt the Elder One, the will that is Corypheus." Well, now she had a name to go with the voice. "You will kneel," he demanded.

She scoffed at him, "Like hell I will." She started forming lightning in her fist, but Corypheus raised an orb that swirled with green and red and her mark flared painfully. She dropped her staff and clutched the hand to her chest as she cried out. 

"I have come for the Anchor," Corypheus said, "The process of removing it begins now." He extended the orb and the mark connected with it the way it did with rifts, pulling her hand away from her body and out in front of her. 

"Ahhhhh!" Maeve screamed as fiery pain lanced from her palm up her arm. 

"You interrupted a ritual years in the planning, Herald," he spat the title, "And instead of dying you stole its purpose." He channeled more magic through the orb and into the mark, bringing her to her knees from the pain. "It doesn't matter how you survived, but what you flail at rifts I crafted to assault the very heavens! And you have the gall to undo my work!" The dragon was stalking closer behind her, but Maeve couldn't focus on anything but the pain in her hand.