Breaking the Divide (remastered) - Cullen Rutherford

Chapter 9: Escape

Bodies were burning.

Cullen ground his teeth, trying to ignore the stench as he held one of the Chantry sisters tight against his chest, his shield held above both their heads. Flames licked around the edge of the metal, threatening to consume them. Gripping the woman closer, Cullen used his body to block the bulk of the heat. He grimaced at the acrid scent of charred fur.

The dragon pulled away, arcing towards the front of Haven. Cullen took off with the sister at a run towards the Chantry. Inside, a child was crying, curled up in Sera's lap as she stroked the the small boy's hair. Men moaned under healers' hands as they tended to scorched limbs. Solas was treating the scout Cullen had brought in. Turning back to the battle, he paused to take in the chaos. So many people had been reduced to ash, blades half-melted in the snow. Damn them. Why hadn't they listened when he'd told them to pull back?!

Shaking off the guilt, Cullen ordered two guards to do a final sweep of the buildings with Blackwall before he charged towards the main gates. A behemoth—too twisted to be called a man but too recognizable to be a monster—stood beside one of the trebuchets, its clawed arm of red lyrium raised above its head. Near a half dozen men clustered around it, armed with swords and shields. Dorian and Varric stood on a pillar of ice above the fray, arrows and bolts of fire raining down on the madness below. Blades and crystalized arms hacked at the pillar but did little more than chip the ice. Kaitlyn stood at the center of the chaos, her staff blade buried in the snow as ice crept up the behemoth's legs, freezing it into place. A large mallet bashed the frozen creature, snapping it apart into chunks with a sickening crack as Bull laughed from deep within his chest.

A sword raised behind Kaitlyn's back.

Cullen surged forward.

The metal fizzled against Kaitlyn's dying barrier, threatening to break through. She turned. Cassandra was running from the opposite direction. Dorian had redirected his flame towards the attacking templar.

Cullen reached him first. Heaving the templar against the ice pillar, Cullen ran his blade straight through the man's heart. His face was cracked and glowing red. The perpetual song of the red lyrium danced through the dying man's eyes before Cullen ripped out his sword and let the man fall. He turned, shield at the ready, but the rest of the group had already been punctured or singed beyond recognition.

"We seem to be clear for the moment," Cullen said. "Everyone's regrouping at the Chantry: we may not get another chance to catch our breath like this again." He caught Cassandra's eye and she gave him a grim nod. They were dead, but... at least this way, some of the people might die with hope instead of terror.

"Right behind you," Kaitlyn said as she brought down her tower of ice. Blood continued to trickle down her cheek, mixing with the sweat on her skin.

Cullen waited until the others passed before joining her side on their weary return to the Chantry. Her eyes were glazed, chest heaving, skin flushed. She wouldn't last much longer in a fight. None of them would. Even Cassandra lacked the usual conviction in her step.

"Do you think...?" Kaitlyn started to ask as they neared the Chantry doors. "Um—that is... what if we put Mother Giselle and the children down in basement where the cells are. It's possible that once the main building is burned, the templars won't press into the cellars and we could put spells in place that would prevent fire from spreading down there—no; they should have some of the mages with them. Fiona, at the very least. She'll protest, but she's the closest thing the mages have for a leader. Maybe Vivienne or Dorian too. Or is that ridiculous? I know there's not a lot of room down there, but I was hoping that maybe..." She groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why can't every building have escape tunnels like Redcliffe Castle?"