The camp is undisciplined. Raiders are gaming with dice over crates. Others lounge and drink straight from bottles of rotgut obtained from who knows where. The guards are lackadaisical. They have no reason to expect that anyone from Kirkwall will be after them, not with the city in the state it is.

It's the Mabari who notice something is off, suddenly setting up angry snarls and bays and lunging at the bars of their crates as though they can break through by sheer force of will. While the men and women in the camp scramble for weapons, wide eyed and looking for what has the dogs stirred up, Cullen, his templars, and the few guards with them charge forward. Arrows sail overhead and thunk into other archers.

Cullen sets his sights on the best armored of the lot of them. If he's not the leader, Cullen's a knight enchanter. The man has enough time to snatch his maul off the ground and turn toward him, and the two of them are clashing. He opens with a shield bash and gives him no chance to recover his equilibrium, hammering him with his sword and focusing on weak spots in the armor. The once peaceful night is full of the sounds of shouting and the clash of steel on steel. The rage of the Mabari carries above the rest of the din, the powerful dogs wanting their own chance for blood.