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WHO: All characters signed up to participate in the Battle of Ghislain
WHAT: The Inquisition regroups and heads home
WHEN: Covers the period immediately post-battle (11.28) through the journey back to Kirkwall (11.29-12.1)
WHERE: North of Montfort, Orlais, and on the road to Val Chevin
NOTES: This is Post #2, covering the immediate aftermath of the battle and the journey back to Kirkwall. It's a free-for-all. Post #1 covers the battle itself. More info on the OOC post.

The Inquisition and Orlesian armies eventually limp to a halt along the Imperial Highway north of Montfort, where wide fields and gentle hills offer clear lines of sight and a sparsely equipped fortress provides some shelter and fortification. It's a soundly strategic location—if Ghislain is lost, Montfort is the last major city between the invaders and Val Royeaux—but among the rank and file there may be too much chaos to appreciate it.

For the remainder of the day and well into the night, the fortress and surrounding land are a frenzy of activity. The wounded who were not left on the field must be triaged and tended to with limited supplies, while many healers and surgeons out of commission themselves and the remainder worked to the bone. Scouts, soldiers, and even support staff in sturdy enough condition to keep working may be tasked with assembling camp from the few remaining supplies, taking reports on known casualties or acquired intelligence, or further fortifying the new location. The Orlesian army sends one of its battered cavalry units toward Ghislain to attempt to provide some warning, and from the Inquisition's number a few patrols are sent back toward the battlefield or toward Ghislain, with stern orders not to re-engage, only to watch for signs of pursuit, and to direct any stragglers.

Those who remain in the fortress are in for a long, miserable night, with meager rations and makeshift bedding, if any of either, while the wind shifts directions and grows colder. By morning a number of the wounded have died, but attempts to build a pyre are hampered by the sudden swell of a storm that starts with freezing rain and then transitions to early and unpredicted thick, heavy snow.

For a few hours that morning the two armies attempt business as normal, but it soon becomes clear that the storm is getting stronger, and they risk being snowed in with more people than they can feed. Many, including the Inquisition's Gallows contingent, are ordered to disperse. Many crowd into wagons, with any transportable wounded receiving further attention en route and neighbors hunching close to preserve heat whether they like one another or not, while those able to do so follow on foot or horseback over the rough, flash-frozen highway toward Montfort and then west toward Val Chevin. The storm doesn't abate until they've nearly reached the city, but once there they're able to stop, eat, and spend a few hours indoors thawing out before proceeding home.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Startled by the sound of a voice beside him, Cade turns to see who spoke, and offers a wary nod to The Priest. Speaking of things that Aren't Right, he looks more like a nervous dog than a man, and it's not helped by the bandage over half his face.

No, Cade does not look right at all. The Priest returns his (her?) regard though not the nod, studying him as if he were an item of prey.

Because he is acting like one and that is also wrong. He is an ally and it itches at the Priest to have one behaving so. "You are nervous. Say why."

Being regarded like prey is not unknown to Cade, not even within the last 24 hours. He feels his skin crawl and shudders, eyeing the strange person with the additional paranoia of someone who already spends most of his life assuming he's about to be killed.

He opens his mouth as if to answer, but the words stop before they get there, and he simply shakes his head and takes a step to the side, giving himself a wider berth.

Now what?

Timidity invites chase. The Priest turns toward Cade as if to follow him, mouth already open for a snarling rebuke. Any djur who acted this way would be culled--

If she were a soldier. A worker would have more leeway, hivebound and easily frightened as they are. He (she?) has already seen a battle and survived--Divine Shadow curse the day--intact. Of course there would be fear and dislocation.

(Do not think for a moment you have made this decision because of a softening heart. Do not believe their lax morals have begun to slip in and take up the space loneliness has opened.)

The Priest's shift in demeanor is jarring, from hungry frustrated attention to a sudden disinterest. Yellow eyes go from Cade toward the tree line. "It does not matter." Grudging.

"Say if you can speak at all."

Backing off is what makes the difference, ultimately. Feeling his personal space open up again, Cade glances back to the stranger, still untrusting, but no longer quite as fearful-- they're with the Inquisition, after all.
But there are enemies everywhere.
"I can," he rasps, so quietly it's nearly a whisper.

There is that at least: This one is not mutilated into silence.

Though it would be better to leave them both to that silence. The Priest does not have need of excess words--the outburst aside--but speaking is a way to press without pressing. To get out the itch for cruelty the prey drive provoked without causing real harm.

"Say what it is you watch for."

What is it he watches for? Cade scans the horizon, sees nothing of interest, and scans again. Any moment now. Or it could come from behind...
He glances over his shoulder at the weary caravan, then forward again. Takes a quick breath in and out, squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head.

"D...danger," he concludes.

"You fear we are pursued."

The Priest's own look at their surroundings is more leisurely, considering the weight of Cade's anxiety. The darkspawn were beast-clever and moved beneath the ground. The enemy army had a disgusting skill at ambush. (Did no one on this miserable, wonderful world have any concern for the truth.)

Their own might even turn against them.

"Not unfounded. Danger will find the Inquisition again in time. It will survive or be destroyed as it should have been."

Though a loss earned through treachery perhaps did not invoke the ordinary law.

"...yes," comes a choked agreement, and Cade is no doubt unnerved by how easily the Priest says so. But something they said catches his attention amidst all the noise and panic, and he glances to them: "...should... have been?"

There is a space of silence where someone born human might sigh or touch hand to face. "A proper war," the Priest says at length, "is to annihilation. They fight to the death, who cannot win. A Priest culls those that flee."

And yet: Here a Priest is fleeing with them, and gives utterance to a low grating noise of irritation at that fact. "A proper war is also fought face to face with full strength declared."

Not from hiding. None of this was right.

He should have been culled many times over now, Cade can't help but think, and his eyes take on that distant quality once again. The war is neverending, a pattern of attacking and fleeing, raining death all around and being dead, wishing one were dead. He blinks erratically with a little shake of his head that isn't to the Priest, or anything in particular.

"We'll come back," he says in a small voice. They'll always come back. He'll be fed into the beast's mouth as many times as it takes to be fully digested, and then perhaps he'll know peace in the oblivion.

It is an aberrant and hopeless society that would put one so poorly suited to war on the front lines, the Priest thinks again. No part of that is this woman's (man's?) fault.

Yellow eyes return to the tree line; the Priest marches on in silence some moments longer.

"We'll come back." It tastes true (though not True) to the Priest's senses and perhaps there is merit in it. A hive that weathered insults for long often continued.

"That shall be seen." A curling breath out in the cold winter air. "But you should not come back with them."

Perhaps one error might be righted.

Despite the absurdity of this discussion, Cade's bone-weariness and constant, pulsing terror, he hears the Priest's words and finds something in them that makes sense.

"M..." he stumbles, with some difficulty speaking the words, "...maybe I shouldn't." But there are so many wars, and who is there to fight them but those made into soldiers? The question feels like treachery.

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