"Go on, then," he allowed, his tone a clear warning -
there'd better be a good explanation for this, or both Conrad and Rolan are going to be hip deep in it.
I took a deep, relieved breath, and felt Alistair relax slightly at my side. Rolan swallowed reflexively, and then continued with a deep breath of his own. "I knew that the soldiers with me wouldn't help Wardens be captured, and might try to stop us, so when they woke I told them to establish a new camp closer to the cliffs, keep an eye out for darkspawn, and wait for me there. I went with the templars and established an ambush site at the bottom of the pass where we would be within range to smite them before they would know we were there. And then we waited.
"They didn't know exactly when the mages would be arriving - that was my first indication something wasn't right. If they were working for Knight-Commander Greagoir, they should have known exactly when they were leaving. And then I overheard two of the men talking about...about Solona. Inappropriately." He blushed, and I was briefly glad he wasn't going to give me any details to go with the vile mental image I had come up with. "And Lieutenant Rylock didn't stop them. Later, it became clear she was going to let them do whatever they wanted to her. At the time...I guess I hoped she thought it was a joke, or something." He was clearly upset, his expression almost indignant.
Justice stood up abruptly, his armour scraping across the stone floor, but Aedan held up a hand before he could say anything. The spirit paced restlessly at the back of the room, fortunately not glowing blue or shouting in his horrible abomination-voice, but clearly agitated. I couldn't blame him.
Rolan eyed him curiously, but then cleared his throat and continued. "I also knew the mages had guards with them, and assumed the soldiers would accompany us to Kinloch. Surely they would yield to the authority of the Chantry? Especially when outnumbered. I knew they'd never stand by and let the templars harm a Warden, and when one of the younger templars brought that up, asking what would happen if the soldiers saw the templars with Solona..." He trailed off, closing his eyes as if trying to banish a particularly bad mental image. "...I overheard one of the Corporals saying that he didn't need to worry - they'd all be dead anyway. They had no plans to leave any witnesses.
"I realised that whatever was going on, the Knight-Commander obviously had nothing to do with it. They were acting on their own, acting like animals, and I couldn't just let them..." He trailed off, brow wrinkled. I jumped when he slammed his armoured fist into a nearby table. "I joined the Order to help people! I believe in the Maker and the Chant. 'Magic exists to serve man', and all that. I've seen what mages can do, seen abominations and demons and blood magic. I had friends die when the Circle fell. But this! I always thought mages were cursed, felt sorry for them even, but I knew the world had to be protected from them. That doesn't mean they deserve to be mistreated! I never signed on to watch mages who hadn't even been confirmed as maleficar be raped, or murdered..."
We were all rapt attention, watching Rolan obviously castigating himself as he told the story. I wasn't sure who to feel sorrier for. He'd been lied to and brainwashed by the Chantry, addicted to dangerous substances, and then abandoned when it was convenient. And then he got to see just how bad his zealot colleagues could get. It couldn't have been easy to accept how wrong he'd been. Aedan's posture had eased, and Alistair squeezed my hand almost absently.
I hate the Maker-damned Chantry!
"I waited until nightfall. We returned to their camp, knowing the mages wouldn't risk the pass in the dark, and once everyone had settled, I snuck out of there. I walked to where I knew the rest of my patrol would be, planning to send a message and have a scout follow the templars - I knew I didn't have the manpower to stop the templars myself. But when I got there, I found Conrad's patrol as well. I'd forgotten all about the missed rendezvous."
Conrad took over, and Rolan shot him a grateful look. "With both patrols, we outnumbered the templars. I thought we could arrest them and prevent them from getting their hands on the mages. We broke camp, and fell on the templars the next day. They'd already captured Solona and Anders, and had killed their guards. I expected the templars to yield, honestly - we had the advantage of numbers, and caught them by surprise - but some of them insisted on a fight. We killed seven of them before the rest threw down their weapons and surrendered. The surviving Knight-Corporal told us that he didn't know who they reported to, but they were to bring the mages to Amaranthine and board a ship - they were taking them somewhere in Orlais, as far as he knew.
"Greagoir had tried to excommunicate the lot of them after some incident at Kinloch a few months back, but Rylock had found them a Chantry sponsor who was supplying them with Lyrium and promised to 'fix everything' if they brought in the Warden mages - alive, though not necessarily unharmed, apparently. They were explicitly promised they had free rein as long as they were still breathing. But of course Rylock was one of those who fought to the death, and she was the only one who knew all the details.
"We stayed there for the day; the mages hadn't been harmed, thank the Maker - in the confusion with Rolan missing, their 'entertainment' had been put on hold - but they'd both been hit by smites, then fed magebane, and were feeling sick. We planned to light a pyre in the morning for the templars and the soldiers we'd lost, and then escort the remaining templars back to the Vigil, but we were attacked by darkspawn in the night. It was like they came out of nowhere. I just had time to send off one of the scouts to try to get a message back to you. But with the templars tied up, both mages unable to cast, and some of the soldiers injured...we had no chance. I saw Rolan fall, and then I got hit in the head...and woke up in a dungeon with Rolan, and no sign of the mages."
Rolan began talking again. "Somehow we were healed before we woke. The Architect took blood from both of us a few times, brought us rations and water, but otherwise left us alone. I tried to smite him, but he just shrugged it off. We were just stuck there, waiting - naked, no weapons, nothing. And then, not long before you found us, a ghoul came in. A dwarf. Unlocked our cages, dumped out a bag full of our equipment, and left without a word."
"She was a Silent Sister," Conrad explained. "There was one in Jader when I was there, and I recognised some of the gestures. She told us to leave, that she hoped we'd be able to escape."
"Utha," I gasped. "She's not working with the Architect anymore then - he wouldn't have been happy."
Conrad nodded. "I asked her about the mages, but she wouldn't say, just kept telling us to leave. We fought our way out of the cells, and that's when you found us. But you said you haven't found Solona and Anders yet?"
Aedan shook his head sadly.
"This is my fault." Rolan stood up, unbuckled his sword sheath from his waist and dropped it to the floor, then stood, hands clasped behind his back in submission, facing Alistair and Aedan. "It's no secret I was...concerned about mages outside of Chantry control, and I thought you weren't watching them closely enough...but they did not deserve this. I didn't stop the templars, and I failed Solona and Anders, as well as you both. I am prepared to accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate, Commanders." I wondered if I'd ever heard Rolan use their names before, instead of calling them 'mage' or 'Warden', but I detected no insincerity in his apology. Conrad looked like he was going to object, but Rolan shook his head subtly and the senior Warden sat back with a sigh.
I glanced at Aedan out of the corner of my eye to see his jaw twitch with tension. "Wait outside, Warden," he told the former templar. "We will let you know." Conrad stood to go with him, but Aedan gestured to his chair. "Not you."
Conrad sat reluctantly, an unhappy scowl marring his normally handsome face. We waited in silence for Rolan to shuffle out the door. Nate made eye contact with one of his captains outside, and I knew he would be watched until Aedan decided what to do with him.
Aedan finally sat back down after the door shut, shoulders slumping. He turned to Conrad, one eyebrow raised expectantly.
"Commander," the redhead said slowly, as though testing each word before letting them out, "I'll grant that going along with the templars in the first place doesn't paint him in the best light, but he risked his life to get away from them so he could warn us. There was literally no way he could have stopped them alone, and if he'd tried to convince them, they'd have killed him. You didn't see them; their devotion to what they called their 'duty' was...disturbing, actually. I've never seen a person fight so hard in the face of overwhelming odds. It's like they were possessed. There's no chance he could have stopped them alone.
"And then after we defeated the templars, he had to stand there and listen to them denigrate him, call him a coward, a Chantry traitor, and worse; the only time he reacted was when one of them said something disrespectful to Solona, and he made the bastard regret it, too.
"When the darkspawn attacked, he was the first to be standing where both mages had fallen, too sick to defend themselves properly. He fought like a demon himself, took wounds he shouldn't have trying to protect them. He fell, but he made the 'spawn pay for it. And he was the first to insist we go after them ourselves rather than escape as the ghoul recommended.
"He's expecting to be executed, I think, or sent to prison somewhere - maybe Aeonar, or the Warden equivalent. I'd like to think I know you well enough to know that's not going to happen. He made a mistake, but he's realised it and tried to do what he could to make up for it. He doesn't deserve that."
I was impressed by Conrad's impassioned speech, but more so by the fact that, without knowing it, Rolan had earned such a dedicated defender. Since his Joining, out of all of us, Conrad had worked with him the most, probably spoken to him the most while the rest of us were avoiding the issue and hiding our heads in the sand.
We did nothing to help him transition, to make him feel welcome, and he stayed anyway. If Conrad is so positive that he's reformed, that he didn't purposefully put the mages in harm's way...He will still need to be punished for insubordination, but I guess I can give him the benefit of the doubt for the rest.
