[Dragon Age] Strays Taken In (Part II)
Title: Strays Taken In
Fandom: Dragon Age
Characters: Fenris and Merrill, appearances by others.
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 16,687 (9,458 in the second part)
Notes: Post-game, so spoilers. Assumes a female rogue or warrior Hawke in a romance with Anders.
Summary: A surprising find sends Fenris and Merrill on an undercover investigation in Starkhaven, pitting them against royal enemies and--more importantly--their own personalities.
« PART I »
The days, then the weeks, edged by in a slow and tense procession. Fenris tried not to see much of Merrill. It shouldn't have been difficult. He slept through most of the days, staying awake in the daylight long enough only to put in a few hours of work at discreet tasks closer to the market that paid the meager sum the two of them needed to get by. Merrill, for her part, did odd jobs around the alienage, which paid even less, but did, he had to admit, ingratiate her with the locals. Come nightfall, Fenris put his armor back on as always and headed to the nobles' quarter.
Despite there being no need for their paths to cross much, Merrill tried to talk to him when they did meet. She asked after his nights by the estates, and she suggested incessantly that he try to make friends with the others in the alienage, like she was doing. She didn't dare impress upon him the Dalish stories that she was telling the children, but she did suggest he tell them stories of his own that he had read.
She also tried to make him pet the kitten.
His nightly investigations bore little fruit. The Starkhaven nobility was abuzz with the news of the Loerich daughter vanishing, and even the servants voiced their thoughts on whether they believed she'd been kidnapped by her long-lost mage lover or whether she'd taken off in pursuit of him of her own volition. In the face of all that useless gossip, Fenris could barely gather scraps of useful information. The trade in enchantments was growing strained as the Circles became unstable; the hours of Starkhaven's templars were unusually long lately; word was the Champion had been seen in three places at the same time. That last one was less useful and more entertaining. The information about the local templars was potentially useful, but their training grounds were scattered throughout the estates, usually in places that were difficult to penetrate, and Fenris could not risk investigating them further without a more solid lead and better details.
And so it went, until one night he found himself turned back from the estates early by a heavy presence of guardsmen--a particularly bold theft had excited the nobles, and he couldn't risk stalking their properties amidst that. Resigned to calling the night a failure, Fenris made his way back to the alienage. As he approached the square again, though, an unexpected light made him tense. He slowed, readying his hand to reach for the sword (whose size he was still getting used to).
But when he came close enough for the scene to resolve, he saw that he needn't have bothered worrying. It was just Merrill, for once not abusing anything with her magic. She sat under the vhenadahl with a small torch in her hands, surrounded by a meager crowd of interested children brave enough to emerge from the scant safety of their hovels for, he presumed, a chance to hear the so-called old stories. He grimaced and stalled just outside the square, not wanting to pass by the little crowd and hear Merrill's sanctimonious voice cooing over the Dalish tales. But with a sigh, he steeled himself to go on by anyway.
Then he stopped as he registered just what she was telling the children.
"--vision waiting in the Beyond. In the time of Arlathan, they said, Dirthamen had left it buried in a secret place there, and even he had not known its purpose." She clutched, white-knuckled, at the torch, its flames casting shadows over her face.
Fenris had read about this story and how it was created during the establishment of the Dales. He knew where this was going.
"But in the trance that had fallen upon him, Shartan hunted through the unfamiliar lands of the Beyond." She wasn't a very good storyteller, speaking as haltingly as she did, but she was earnest, and that kept the children paying attention. "For the first time in his life, he ventured out of his own dreams, guided by Andruil's arrows. There he found the buried vision, and he awoke as the magisters were putting him to the flames with the human prophet. With his last breaths, he told his people...our people! He told our people that the old gods waited for us in a new land, and there we would be free."
"But they didn't." Fenris didn't recall making the decision to speak. He hated when that happened. But he was committed to it now, so he strode out of the shadows and into the feeble torchlight. "Even now you teach that the gods of Arlathan are locked away."
"Perhaps we weren't given enough of a chance to revive them," Merrill said quietly. "Maybe they're still waiting."
"Believe that if you will," he said. "The story's false, though. Apocryphal, invented by the first Dalish to give their stories of old gods legitimacy. The few accounts of Andraste's martyrdom that mention Shartan all agree on one point: he was unconscious when put to the flame. The Tevinter soldiers were unable to subdue him any other way."
"Those stories are human ones," said Merrill. "Of course they wouldn't dare admit that an elf had anything to say to his people."
"You miss the point," he said. "If he'd woken before his death, the magisters would have taken great pains to mention it. They drew as much pleasure from their enemies' suffering then as they do now. Luckily for us, they've forgotten some of the ways they used to draw power from it as well." He was still bitter from hearing her story, and he knew even as he spoke that he shouldn't have been saying some of these things in front of the group of children. But he did it anyway. "I'm sure you consider that a great loss. Perhaps you'd like to rediscover their methods?"
Merrill glared at him for a moment, then forced herself to look away, back at her listeners. "Everyone, this is Fenris, my companion in our travels."
A couple of the youngest children edged away. Another asked, "Are you Dalish too, Fenris?"
"No," he said. "I am Tevinter."
A boy started to speak up. "But I thought the elves in the--ow!" An older girl next to him had stepped on his foot, hard. "Oh. Oh."
"I want to hear your stories, too," a familiar voice chimed in abruptly. It was Arilen, on the edge of the group.
"I have no stories," he said. "None that I wish to tell." But the small crowd was looking at him now, seven pairs of wide elven eyes shining in the firelight. He thought of Merrill's stupid tale of the vision Shartan had never had, and he sighed. "If you're going to hear lies about Shartan, there are better ones. On the journey away from the Imperium after Andraste's death, the elves made a game of inventing the most absurd tales they could imagine about him. After the fall of the Dales, those of us who wound up with the humans found writings about the practice and revived it."
Merrill frowned. "That sounds awfully disrespectful," she said.
"Do you know many of them?" asked the girl who'd stepped on the younger boy's foot.
Fenris grinned. "I know every one recorded in writing."
"Oh," Merrill said. "You smiled! Is your face going to break? I can't help you if your face breaks."
He walked over to her, leaned down, and took the torch. "In 1:33 Divine, a dwarf challenged Shartan to a beard-growing contest. In 3:02 Towers, the same dwarf was found by human hunters, beardless and weeping."
Merrill frowned, started to lift a hand, then stopped.
"In a fight between the Maker and the Archdemon, Shartan would win."
A few of the children stifled gasps at the blasphemy. One giggled.
"A bear tried to eat Shartan once. It never recovered its teeth or its intestines, but it always considered itself lucky to have met him."
Merrill and one of the children simultaneously wrinkled their noses in thought.
"Shartan's tears are the only known cure for the Blight. Too bad he has never cried. Not once."
The children were silent, waiting for more.
"A king once raised a legion of mages to move a mountain that stood in the way of his conquering army. When they reached it, they had to turn around and go home, because Shartan had moved another mountain in front of it."
One boy clapped.
"There once was another nation in Thedas. It looked at Shartan funny." It was strange. "The Divine once declared an Exalted March on Shartan. It was later called the Exalted Apology For Disturbing Shartan's Supper." He was actually enjoying this. "Amongst a barbarian tribe of Ferelden, they tell--" Fenris cut off as he felt Merrill tugging at his gauntlet. Frowning, he pulled his hand away from her. "What?"
"It seems a terrible shame to interrupt you," she said, "but the children were supposed to go home to their beds after I finished that last story."
"But I want to hear more," the boy who'd first spoken said.
"Tomorrow," Merrill said firmly. The group reluctantly began to disperse.
After a minute, though, it was clear that one girl wasn't leaving--the oldest of them, by the looks of her, at fourteen or so. Instead, she approached the two of them. "I'll go soon, Merrill, I promise," she said. "But this is important. I mean, you were asking about these things."
"What is it, Emmea?" Merrill said.
"My aunt works in the kitchens and cellars at the Eislend estate," she said, "and I overheard her telling my mother about it. There've been a lot of shipments passing through the mansion to a nearby square where templars are trained--" Fenris leaned in a little. Emmea glanced at him apprehensively, then continued. "And last week, two servants carrying a crate accidentally dropped it and got sick. My aunt checked later and found broken vials of poison inside. I thought that sounded like the sort of thing you were looking for."
"It is," Merrill said. "Thank you."
"Where is the Eislend estate?" Fenris said. "And is there a way of getting to it without attracting notice?"
Emmea hesitated.
"What's wrong?" Merrill asked.
"Whatever happens, there will be no way of tracing it to your family," Fenris said. "I promise."
Emmea bit her lip. "If I show you the servants' passages, there might be."
Fenris glanced at Merrill. "Go and get a sovereign. We can spare it."
Emmea's eyes widened. "I can't take a whole sovereign! You..."
"We have allies beyond this alienage," Fenris said quietly. "You do not. Save it, for now. Using the money right after giving information to us would be too suspicious."
She nodded. "You're right."
Merrill frowned, then headed for the attic.
Emmea looked after her for a moment. "I'll show you tomorrow," she finally said. "I liked your jokes, by the way."
Fenris smiled. "What makes you think they were jokes?"
* * *
In the end, it took three days to prepare for the trip into the Eislend mansion. Most of that time was spent hunting down and procuring a heavy jacket with the family crest on it for Fenris to wear over his rather conspicuously spiky armor. He was already going to be moving through the cellars of the estate carrying a large sack containing a sword; he needed some way of granting himself some legitimacy.
Eventually, their host in the alienage helped them out by stealing the crest from a friend of a customer, and Arilen sewed it onto the jacket after Merrill's fourth failed attempt. The two of them then retired to a corner where Arilen could teach Merrill how to handle a needle, while the kitten batted infuriatingly at spools of thread.
"Do you know how many people in the Eislend mansion have connections to the alienage?" Fenris asked the prostitute whose attic they were lodging in as he tried not to watch this spectacle.
"Why do you ask?" The man's name was Sef. He was getting ready to go out to market and so was dressed and made up to pass as human. Fenris had seen him prepare to go to his job, and he looked very different then, when he needed to emphasize his elven heritage to draw in the human clients who favored that.
"Too many, and the link will be obvious if I'm discovered," Fenris said. "Too few, and it will be too easy to narrow down to one family."
Sef shook his head. "Nobody would connect you to the alienage."
"I would have thought that a compliment, once," Fenris said. He suspected it was true; Sebastian's men likely had descriptions of all of Hawke's companions, and his no doubt made a point of mentioning his preference for Hightown mansions. That would be useful here.
"And now?"
He looked away. "I'll go tonight," he said.
When Emmea had mentioned servants' passages, Fenris had imagined a few connected cellars beneath each mansion. What they turned out to be was something much more useful: the renovated remains of an old sewer system from when Starkhaven had been less wealthy and only the elite center of town had been able to afford such a luxury. Many tunnels between different estates had been blocked up to prevent theft, but a few remained, either from neglect or intention. No wonder gossip spread so fast in the estates. Servants flowed back and forth like a tide beneath them, mingling and sharing news, the occasional joke, and the rarest of stolen kisses. A few of them looked askance at Fenris as he made his way through at night, but most backed off at the sight of the Eislend crest on his coat. So long as he avoided the paths known to have particularly sharp and well-paid guards posted, he would be fine.
He'd intended to walk right up to the square of the templar training grounds and climb out in the corner of the yard. Approaching the bend in the passage that would lead to that exit, however, he heard the tread of exceptionally heavy footsteps coming from further down the hall. He ducked back, pressed himself against the wall, and waited.
"Stop pacing." The voice had a trace of the accent of Starkhaven nobility--definitely a guard and not a servant.
There was a cough, and the footsteps stilled. Fenris waited for more chatter, but these men were well-trained, and they knew that uninitiated servants were nearby. They weren't going to reveal any secret plans here. He retraced his path back down the passageway, looking for another exit.
A door swung open not far away, and a woman in plain clothes, a human servant, ran down a nearby staircase and out into the main underground hall. She skidded to a halt at the sight of him, illuminated by the lantern she held. "Oh," she said, taking in the Eislend crest on his jacket and the large sack in his hands, "you must be delivering the lyrium."
He raised a brow. "Am I to give it to you?"
"Of course," she said. "Master Eislend has all the deliveries for the new templars routed through me. It's not something the--" Looking at him, she stopped, checked herself, and revised her statement. "It's not something just anyone can be trusted with."
"Really," he said, pleased with his luck but careful not to show it. "Why can't the templars handle their own lyrium trade?"
She shook her head in disapproval. "The Prince has been pushing them too hard. I don't know how he got authority over templars, but they say he's rearranged their training completely here. They need more supplies than the Chantry normally allows for." She held up her hands. "That's all I know. Are you going to give me the lyrium or not?"
"I was told I'd be handing it over to a man," he said. "Perhaps the dwarf was confused, or perhaps he knew something neither of us do. I'll return once I've spoken with my contact." Before she could object, he gave a slight bow and strode off down the hall.
His luck held out around the next bend, where a ladder led up to the surface. He checked the location against his memory of the maps and pictured where it should come out. Not far outside the walls of the templars' square. Good. This was clearly the place, but he needed to learn more about what they were doing here before he could go back. He wasn't likely to have another chance to return here.
Fenris climbed up the ladder, swung open the grate above, and pulled himself out of the passages. It was dark out, and he could make out no one nearby enough to see him. Another stroke of luck. He took off the coat, then pulled his sword out of the sack and hefted it in one hand, then checked its balance with two. Not as firm or heavy as he'd have liked, but he made do with what could be smuggled, around here. He made his way to the wall surrounding the square and started following the noises from within.
There weren't many. It would have been better to come in the morning, for purposes of information-gathering, but he would never have made it here unseen. He'd been fortunate enough on that account even now. From the sounds of armor jangling, though, there were definitely still templars in the courtyard. The strange part was that those same sounds weren't as loud or metallic as he'd have expected from templars. They were more lightly armored than usual.
A stray conversation between two off-duty trainees confirmed this: they were being taught to use lighter armor, and they weren't pleased with it. The older one cut the newer recruit off before he could breathe a word of why, though. That was all right. Fenris was starting to form a decent picture of what was going on here. Templars being trained as assassins. A clever use of Chantry resources, indeed.
Aside from that brief exchange over the armor, though, and one complaining about the late hours tonight, "even if the reason is obvious, of course, and we're supposed to be grateful he cares," Fenris overheard nothing of interest from the templars. Either they were gathered somewhere too far for him to hear anything, or they were being well-behaved at the moment. Or both.
Instinct honed over the years sent a warning trickling down his spine after his second circuit of the wall. It was time to go. Whatever was keeping the templars so docile tonight was a danger to him as well. The grate he'd left the servants' passages through was just across the lane; he would be gone before anyone other than the woman in charge of deliveries for the Eislends knew he'd been here.
He got close enough to resolve the dark shape of the half-open grate before the suspicion lurking at the back of his mind exploded into frantic alarm. A pale bright figure atop the courtyard wall, something coming at him, he had to move before he could get a better look--
The first arrow whistled past his neck, and he realized a second too late, as the next shot slammed into the edge of his breastplate and cracked the rib beneath it with a shock of pain, that it had never been meant to hit. The aim was to debilitate him and take him alive.
"I thought the servant a liar when word came of what she had seen, Fenris."
Over the past nearly two years, Fenris had let sentiment cloud his recollections of Sebastian Vael. He recalled a man of earnest and polite if irritatingly naive and occasionally hypocritical honor, dedicated to the memory of his family; a devout believer who preached to everyone equally; an adherent of the Chantry who espoused sensible principles on magic in a time when nearly everyone else around them seemed to be going mad on the matter. He had forgotten the impetuosity and impatience. The overwrought flair for drama.
He lifted his sword to deflect the next arrow. "I hope you didn't have her beaten by your new recruits." Another shot, barely dodged. "What does the Chant have to say about politicians who use templars for their vendettas?"
Sebastian made an excellent target for a ranged fighter up on the wall, brilliant in the moonlight on his white armor. It was too bad Fenris didn't have any such allies at the moment. "The Maker blesses some causes above others. Surely you of all people understand that!"
Fenris reached the far wall, but that entrance to the tunnels was useless now. They were surely being patrolled for his presence, and he'd have to find somewhere else to enter. "You think you have the right to tell me what I understand?"
But Sebastian was not content to let the true question go unasked. "Hawke and her maleficar stand for everything that has made you suffer! How can you defend them even now?"
The sudden and familiar bloom of rage made him sloppy. Fenris curled his mouth into a snarl. "I will choose who I--"
Two arrows in quick succession tore through his arms, just shy of the arteries, and pinned him to the wall. Pain almost dazed him for a moment, and he reeled against the solid stone, barely keeping his hold on his sword. In the ensuing break in the onslaught, Sebastian climbed nimbly down the wall. Fenris wondered distantly what his templars thought of that rogue training of his.
"I will not have you killed," Sebastian said. "The Maker demands that we show mercy to those who wrong us, and we were not always enemies." He was still approaching. Did he really think the pain had staggered Fenris for more than a second? More fool, he. "And you know where Hawke and Anders are."
Fenris laughed, low in his throat.
Sebastian paused, suddenly and belatedly wary.
"Absit invidia." The familiar and inescapable old magic crawled through his flesh, and he left the arrows behind in the wall, still dripping with his blood. He solidified again inches from Sebastian and struck the bow from the prince's hands with his sword. "You mean me no harm, is that right?"
Sebastian stumbled back a step. "I--"
His mind clouded by all the blood and focused so intently on the man before him, Fenris barely registered the approaching footsteps until they were too close. Maybe if they'd been wearing heavier armor, he'd have heard them sooner. As it was, the templars almost seemed to materialize around the scene: two of them behind Sebastian, three behind Fenris. Already wounded, he stood no chance against so many fighters--on their own, yes, certainly, but not with more no doubt on the way.
Sebastian steadied himself. "Give yourself up, Fenris," he said.
Fenris smiled. "What do you think happened to every other man who told me that?"
The templars behind him rushed. He ghosted back from the charge, only narrowly avoiding their blades. Next time, he would not be so lucky, and they were already turning to regroup.
He braced himself and wished again that he had a larger sword. They came at him.
Fire blossomed in the air just in front of him, slamming back Sebastian and his templars and faintly singing Fenris himself. Merrill's voice hissed in his ear. "Come quickly!" She was right. The smoke would only hide them for a few more seconds.
Somewhere in that smoke, Sebastian screamed in fury. "Show yourself, Anders! I will see true justice done this night!"
Fenris ran, focusing on Merrill's fleeing figure in front of him. She bounded around the corner, raced across an avenue, scrambled over a fence, and jumped. She landed in the canal below with a splash. He followed her approvingly. Departing by water was the only way they wouldn't leave a trail of blood showing the way to the alienage.
The sound of chaos and pursuit dimmed behind them. As they trotted along a shallow ledge, Fenris felt a chuckle bubbling up.
"What?" Merrill looked back at him, wide-eyed. "What's funny?"
"He thought you were Anders." Fenris found himself barely holding in the hysterical edge on his laughter.
Merrill frowned. "He did. Does he really think Anders is the only one who can manage a good fireball?"
"He's obsessed," Fenris said. "And it's dulled his wits if he thinks I would put up with that lunatic long enough to--" He sagged against the wall of the canal, barely catching himself in time to avoid leaving a bloodstain on the stone. He had questions to ask, he realized: how Merrill had known he would be in trouble and managed to arrive in time to help instead of being distracted by a nearby flower or rabbit, and what they would do now. But right now it was hard enough just to keep his feet moving in a straight line. "We can't go back to the alienage," he said. "We put them in danger now." Sebastian's vendetta was both amusing and useful now, but he would come to his senses soon enough, and then he would realize it was Merrill who had interfered. The next conclusion would not take long to make.
"We can stay there just a little more," Merrill said. "I think. Besides, Arilen said she would be sad if either of us died."
That was his last clear memory of the night. The rest of the journey back was a bloody haze.
* * *
He dreamed of happiness and knew, with detached awareness, that it was a dream. Hawke was not his cousin come to visit a comfortable house in a peaceful village, and surely in waking life he would not have allowed Merrill into his home without good reason. It was strange, though, for he often dreamed of Hawke tending to domestic life with him these days. Sometimes he also had a fire for Varric to tell stories by, and often he heard the sound of Aveline teaching children to defend themselves out in the yard. On occasion he even found Isabela in bed, though he certainly regretted the one time he'd let this fact slip to her in reality--or at least her inability to stop teasing him about it. But this was the first time Merrill had been there, or at least the first time he'd let himself remember her presence.
Hawke's dog kept sitting squarely on his right arm, and for some reason he did not question the fact that Merrill's kitten clinging to his left arm was just as heavy. Such was the nature of dreams. But slowly the memory filtered through to him of why it was happening, and Fenris drew himself up to wakefulness with the usual easily suppressed reluctance. The dull aches of his dream intensified to a throbbing and were joined by a companion in the form of his cracked rib. He sat up and checked his bandages. They had been changed at some point while he slept, and the blood had not yet soaked through the new ones.
Merrill's laughter rose up from the house below, and for a peculiar moment he felt as if he had not yet awakened after all. The sensation passed, leaving him still weary and aching. He glanced at the dusty window. It was afternoon outside. He had slept too long.
Fenris couldn't make out the details of the conversation going on below, but now that he turned his attention to it, he realized that there were three different voices. Two he recognized as belonging to Merrill and Sef, but the third was unfamiliar and bore an accent he hadn't heard in the alienage, though it was common enough in the markets here. He had a fair guess as to who it was, but he wasn't sure whether this would help them or complicate matters further. He put the question out of his mind for the time being, along with the hunger and thirst that followed blood loss, so that he could dress. Had Merrill really needed to strip him to his underclothes to tend to his wounds? He put his armor back on; there was no point in hiding under disguises anymore.
When he made his way down the rickety stairs, the conversation in the rooms below slowed and stilled. He emerged into a kitchen with three faces turned to the stairwell in curiosity.
Merrill rose from her seat. "You're awake! Fenris, this is--"
"I'm aware," Fenris said. "Isabela's friend."
"As are you." He was quick to speak and not much slower to rise and then execute a flowing half-bow, an irritatingly affected gesture. "Do you know, some people say that when you make love to someone, it is as if you have made love to everyone they have as well?"
"Oh," Merrill said, sitting heavily back down. "Oh, that would be messy."
Fenris lifted a brow. "It's a good thing Isabela doesn't 'make love,' then."
Zevran laughed. "So she still gives that speech. I suppose it is part of her charm. My dear," he glanced back at Merrill now, "does your friend here ever smile, or would that disrupt the very sensual and attractive brooding?"
"He does smile sometimes," Merrill said. She glanced up at Fenris. "Is something wrong?"
"Other than the blood loss and the broken rib?" he said. "No. Why do you ask?"
"It's just that you haven't told him how I'm not your friend yet," she said.
"Ah," the Antivan said. "You are lovers, then? You make a charming couple. Tell me, is it an open relationship?"
Fenris closed his eyes and pressed the heel of one hand to his head. He heard a chair scrape against the rough floor, and when he opened his eyes, Sef was standing up to take something down from a shelf. It was a health potion.
"Here," he said. "Zevran brought some."
He grimaced automatically as he took the potion, uncapped it, and downed the draught. The pain in his arms and chest receded to dimness; though the injuries were still there, they were no longer severe enough to be debilitating.
"You always look like you tripped in a sewer when you make that face, you know," Merrill said.
He opened his mouth to tell her how much fouler than sewage he found the magic in these potions to be, but by the time he'd formed the words, he was struck with the odd realization that they were more automatic than angry, and somehow that stopped him. Instead, he said, "Why did you come after me last night?" It sounded a little wrong when it came out--as if he were asking about her feelings rather than a practical matter. So he added quickly, "You had no reason to believe I couldn't handle the investigation on my own."
"But I did," she said. "Soon after you left, Emmea got word that Sebastian was visiting the training grounds that night."
He frowned. "And you thought that reason enough?"
"Well, it was, wasn't it?"
She had a point. He set down the empty container and turned to Zevran. "Why are you here? This is a bad time to be near us."
"So I've been told," he said. "I am in Starkhaven on business of my own, but I've a message from Isabela with the details of where you should go when you leave the city." He held up a scroll. "Terrific timing, no?"
"She does have that," Fenris allowed, taking the scroll. "Sometimes."
"Ha," Zevran said. "I saw that smile."
He took the scroll, opened it up, and started to skim the instructions, but before he'd had time to gather more than the gist of the journey that awaited them, Merrill spoke up.
"Wait," she said, keen distress suddenly piercing her voice. "You're saying we're leaving?"
"We've uncovered Sebastian's plans against Hawke and Anders," Fenris said. "The longer we stay, the more danger everyone around us will be in."
"But if we go now," Merrill said, "he'll have a chance to move his operation and send more assassins after them."
Zevran leaned back thoughtfully against the wall. "He's using assassins?"
"He's training templars to use the methods of assassins," Fenris explained.
Zevran tapped a finger to his chin in consideration. "I cannot aid you in battle, of course; my fight lies elsewhere. However...it occurs to me that if I start a rumor that Prince Vael has stolen Crow methods for his own purposes, we may be able to turn our enemies against each other for a time. Who knows?" He shrugged expansively. "It may even be true. That's the beauty of it."
"I appreciate the help," Fenris said.
"No," Merrill said. "I mean, yes, that would be a great help! But it's not enough. We have to strike while we have the chance, now. Besides..." She wrung her hands nervously. "The more damage we do to them, the less resources they can spare to strike back at the alienage."
Fenris was prepared to unleash a retort, but he realized, almost belatedly, that her logic was actually sound. He closed his mouth to mull that over. Finally, he said, "What chance do the two of us have against a hall full of templars with poisons?"
"I don't know," Merrill admitted. "We'd have to be awfully quick about it, wouldn't we?"
"Yes," he said. "We would."
"But," she said, "if you protect me while I cast, I can turn powerful spells against the entire building."
He gritted his teeth against the rising knot of anger and disgust that came to him at the idea. "Templars are trained against magic. That's their purpose."
"I know," she said. "But we're faster than they are. And they aren't trained against Keeper magic."
He rolled his eyes.
"Are you going to give up a chance to defend Hawke, Fenris?" she asked, her wide-eyed gaze alarmingly sober and intense. "Because that's what running now would be, and you know it." She stood up again. "If you go now, I'll fight them myself."
"You are an idiot," he said.
"So you'll come with me?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "I'll fight."
Zevran grinned and murmured to Sef in a stage whisper, "It is as I said. They are the most charming couple."
Fenris ignored the assassin and turned to Sef himself. "There's a bag of coins by the bed upstairs. Pay off whoever you need to, but make sure word reaches the guard that after the battle, we fled towards Nevarra."
"Understood," he said.
"Make sure no one in the alienage mentions us. Bribe people, if you have to, but Sebastian is an arrogant fool, not a tyrant. So long as the evidence is thin and the people obedient, he won't attack his own citizens. Even the elves."
"Are you sure?" Sef asked.
"I knew the man," Fenris said. "He cared for his city, once...or at least his duty to it. I doubt he has abandoned that completely. Praise the Maker in his presence and you'll be fine."
Merrill nodded. "There'll be templars in here for a while, though. I know the alienage is one of the safer places for mages to hide, but make sure their families know to be extra careful in the coming days."
Zevran chuckled quietly. "Truly, I would love to stay for the spectacle, but I've the feeling I should conclude my business and leave before you begin your attack."
"But you never said just what your business was, Zevran," Merrill said.
"Mmm," he said. "No, my dear. I didn't."
She turned those eyes on him expectantly.
He smiled. "I will say but one thing. The Crows pour great effort into training their charges. Each of us...each of them possesses formidable killing power, honed like the sharpest of blades. But in the end, they're nothing but blades. They know nothing of fighting side by side with a friend, for one has no friends in the Crows. They understand fear, not loyalty. And should you know which threads to cut, they fall apart like cheap rags."
"It sounds very lonely," Merrill said.
"It is," he said. "But I'm no longer one of them. I am a free man."
Fenris looked at him and said nothing. The silence between them hummed with all the nothing he said.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Fenris," Zevran said, "and as much a pleasure seeing you again, Merrill." He leaned down to kiss Sef on the cheek. "Perhaps someday I'll travel longer with you. It would be most exciting, don't you think?"
"I'd like that," Merrill said. "Could you teach me some of the things Isabela and Varric keep saying they'll tell me when I'm older? I'm almost twenty-eight, you know."
He laughed and left her wondering. Fenris hastily stifled a grin. What they planned to do was madness, and he knew that it was real; yet somehow, a part of him wondered if he had yet woken up from his dream.
* * *
They left their belongings in a small boat at a shadowed dock off the usual paths of the city, guarded by a typically underpaid worker gifted with most of the rest of their money (or rather, half of it, the rest promised to him upon their return). Merrill took great pains to make sure the cat was comfortable there, even wasting time on seeing that it had food to eat.
"It will be gone when we return, you realize," Fenris said as they crept through the darkened alleyways on the slow approach to the estates. "Cats have no sense of gratitude."
"Nonsense," Merrill said. "Da'nehn knows I care for her. She likes you too, you know."
He sighed. "I know. It jumps on my head in the mornings."
She beamed. "They can tell when someone doesn't like cats. They're very smart that way!"
The plan was relatively simple. Earlier in the day, Fenris had seen that word was leaked to a small and hungry band of thieves that an opportunity waited in one of the mansions not far from the templar training grounds they needed to attack. His weeks lurking around the estates gave him enough knowledge to pad the claim with convincing facts, and the build-up of soldiers in the area was no doubt being kept under wraps for the time being. The thieves had taken the bait. They would surely flee as soon as they realized the information was false, but before then, they would provide a useful distraction.
Merrill, of course, had worried what would become of the criminals. Fenris had found himself wishing that Isabela was there to provide some reassurance for her, but there was nothing to be done save to tell her that most likely the thieves would manage to abscond in the chaos.
Now the two of them approached the estates from the bottom of a steep bank that conveniently kept them from flooding with a protection the lower quarters of the city lacked. Fenris grasped the bottom rung of a rickety and infrequently used ladder. "We'll have to be quiet from here," he said. "No more talking about the cat."
"Wait!" Merrill said, eyes widening. "There's something I thought of."
He stopped and looked at her.
"It's those stories you were telling," she said. "The jokes. I just thought that we should make some about Hawke."
"What?" he said.
"Maybe Sebastian's soldiers would stop and listen..."
Fenris rubbed his face.
"Or maybe we should wait until we're done and on our way out of the city," Merrill concluded.
"Yes," he said. "Good idea. Are you ready?"
"Of course," she said.
He swung up onto the ladder, and she followed. From here, they would approach the training grounds at an angle to the Eislend estate--not through it again, as it was no doubt guarded fiercely now, nor opposite it, since that was the front entrance to the templar square, but from the side. It was early enough that Sebastian and his men shouldn't be expecting them quite as much as they otherwise might, but late enough that activity nearby would be scant. This was the best they could do.
Holding onto the ladder and listening to it creak, he waited for the thieves to make their move. The minutes crept by. Merrill shifted her grip anxiously on the rungs below, and he suppressed the urge to snap at her. They couldn't afford to argue now.
Finally, a shout rose up in the near distance, followed swiftly by the clash of weapons. "Time," he said. "Let's go." And he vaulted up onto the stone ground and started running. Merrill followed, and they made for the templar square under cover of the nearby fighting.
They were nearly to the wall when the first templars emerged from the shadows: one a stocky woman quick on her feet, the other a rangy man wielding twin daggers. Fenris took the woman with a swift swipe of his sword to her chest. Her armor blunted the worst of the blow, but he heard bones crack all the same, and she staggered backwards, dazed. Meanwhile, a bolt of magic from Merrill winded the man, and she smacked him on the head with her staff as they ran by.
"Stand back!" Merrill said, but she needn't have bothered. Fenris was already bracing himself as she commenced casting. Seconds later, the tree nearest to the wall twisted as if in agony, nature magic uncoiling from its branches, then bucked into the wall, shattering the stone.
Fenris was first over the newly opened path, with Merrill following close behind. He slammed right into a knot of templars belatedly preparing for battle, scything out with his sword to take down the lot of them. He wished that, with the need for disguise over with at last, he'd been able to procure a larger sword, but there'd hardly been time. He'd make do with what he had.
The sounds of conflict from their intended distraction were fading as the templars and guards alike realized they'd been tricked and the thieves fled. Still, it would take the divided forces a precious handful of minutes to reunite. Fenris caught his breath and took in the scene around him. The nearest templars that hadn't been taken down by his blows were doubled over in agony, blood spattering the ground around them, as Merrill drew upon her demonic dealings. He checked to make sure she could pay enough attention to follow him, then ran for the main building. That was their target.
He planted himself in front of the door and ran his blade through the first templar to emerge. "Bring out your worst spells, witch," he called behind him.
Merrill answered him in furious, incomprehensible elven words and began to cast. The ground around them trembled slightly as it responded to her power.
He had no time to voice his contempt. He never had, when he'd fought at her side. It was strange, though--this was the first time he'd done it without Hawke to mediate. He wondered, briefly, if that should bother him, and then he struck down another templar that approached with a wicked poisoned blade.
Tendrils of raw magic rose up from the ground nearby, and he danced back instinctively as they lashed out with the force of the earth at the building. The stone shuddered, pieces of it falling and crumbling. In the rising roar of the falling rock, he almost missed the whistle of arrows headed for him and Merrill. Not Sebastian's, not precise enough to be Sebastian's, but other templars were trained as archers now. He deflected most of the arrows, then scanned the walls until he caught sight of the enemies. He pointed.
Merrill nodded, her face paler than usual. She unhooked a lyrium potion from her belt, hurriedly swallowed it down, then unleashed a wave of fire at the row of archers, followed by a larger storm of flames at the smaller buildings around the courtyard. She was sweating with effort now, he noticed. He would have to work hard to protect her so she could concentrate.
This was not a situation he had ever dreamed he would be in.
Most of the templars had fallen now, dead or too wounded to continue the fight, but the ones remaining were tougher and more clever than the others. He caught sight of a pair of them sneaking around to stab both of them in the back. Only quick thinking allowed him to take care of the two enemies: he shifted his sword to a single hand to slam it into one, then immediately phased his free fist into the other's throat. Blood fountained into the air, freezing in place halfway through its arc before falling abruptly to the ground as Merrill consumed its power.
He grimaced and swallowed his bile.
"Well, you weren't using it," she muttered defensively before downing another lyrium potion and lapsing back into her elven chanting.
He didn't dignify that with an answer, instead focusing his attention on slicing into another attacker. As the templar fell, so too did the roof of the hall at last, crumbling finally into the earth. The courtyard lay strewn with rubble and bodies around them. They had accomplished their mission. The hard part now would be getting out alive.
Fenris turned and grabbed Merrill's wrist. "We go," he said.
"But there are still--"
"We've done enough damage. They won't be able to recover from this."
She looked him in the eye. Even paler than before now, she was sweating copiously and shaking a little from exertion. She wasn't used to using such powerful magic in such rapid succession. Normally he took great pleasure in seeing mages exhaust their inner resources, the dark power within them drained dry at last, but now he worried. "All right," she said with a nod.
The arrow took her in the shoulder. If he hadn't been standing there, blocking Sebastian's view, it would probably have gone through her neck.
Snarling an oath in Arcanum, Fenris spun around. "You throw your men at us to die, then come when we tire? What a prince you are."
Sebastian stood atop the remains of two broken stone pillars at the entrance of the templar hall. He said nothing, but there was a betrayed fury in his eyes visible even from this distance, and he nocked another arrow.
Fenris did not stop to deflect it. He raced forward instead, sword at the ready, barely feeling the pain as the arrow lodged in his breastplate. Two more great leaping steps, and he was halfway up the pile of rubble Sebastian stood on. He realized belatedly, as an arcane bolt slammed into Sebastian's chest and sent him stumbling backwards, frustratingly quick to catch his balance, that Merrill had followed him despite her injury.
Sebastian finally spoke. "Why?" he said. He gestured vaguely at Merrill below them as if she represented this entire mad endeavor. Which she did. "Why, Fenris?"
He was stalling. From the shouts not far away, it was clear that the guards and the remainder of the templars would arrive soon. "I owe you no answer," Fenris said, because he had none.
"No," Sebastian said, "you owe me nothing." He had his next arrow pointed at Fenris now, but he was not loosing it. "But you owe yourself one."
Fenris jumped to close the distance between them and swung his sword. He wasn't aiming to kill--they could ill afford to be responsible for the death of a prince--but he did need to disable.
Sebastian half-dropped his bow and caught the flat of the blade in his hand, wincing at the pain from even the gentler than normal swing. But he regained his stance and stared unflinchingly at Fenris. There was a familiar pain in his eyes both more and less than the holy fervor he so claimed motivated him.
And in the end, that was what got Fenris to speak. That was what pulled words from his mouth that he'd barely allowed himself to think in fleeting moments of inescapable contemplation. "Revolutions come and go," he said. "Powers rise and fall. The Chantry will stand when this is done, though it may be changed in ways I would not choose. All that is beyond my control. But the people I hold close? They are mine to defend. I would not forgive myself if I let them slip away because of my hate."
Sebastian tried to muster a gaze of sanctimonious disapproval and pity. He only partially succeeded. "That is not the Maker's way, Fenris."
"Perhaps not," Fenris agreed. "But it is our way. Mine, and yours." Below them, reinforcements had arrived, and Merrill frantically flung ice and fire at them to thin their ranks and stagger their blows.
Sebastian's look hardened. "You question my faith?"
Fenris shook his head. "No. But why bother seeking Anders's death now? You know that madman was nothing but the spark. The fate of the rebellion rests with Hawke now."
The prince hesitated.
"It's vengeance you're looking to have," Fenris said. "For Elthina."
Despair unmasked flashed in Sebastian's eyes. Lightning quick, he pulled a knife from his belt and stabbed out at Fenris, who ducked and dashed back down the rubble to avoid it. In the reprieve granted, Sebastian lifted his bow once more, nocked an arrow, and fired at Merrill. She was far too exhausted to dodge in time.
Fenris knew, in the instant available to him, that he was better armored and could safely take the arrow with far fewer injuries than Merrill could. He moved automatically to intercept it as he fell. The arrow tore into his chest. It wasn't that bad. He could handle pain.
"Fenris?" Merrill said, wide-eyed.
He gritted his teeth. "Enough."
She turned around and blew Sebastian off his feet with a shock of magic. To his credit, he cried out only briefly as he tumbled down the pile of stones. But then, he had little reason to cry; his wounds would be the first ones tended to when relief came.
Merrill grabbed Fenris's hand and pulled him to his feet. They ran, though she was pale with exertion and he with injuries. They had health potions waiting, and for once, he would not complain when he drank them.
* * *
"I still have trouble believing the cat stayed," Fenris said as they climbed out of the trading caravan on its latest stop outside a village a few days' journey into Antiva from the border. They had a meeting to make this afternoon.
"Oh, you just don't know her," Merrill insisted, carefully helping the kitten down out of the wagon. "You should get a cat of your own sometime, Fenris. To keep you company. It would be good for you!"
"No," he said.
She sighed. "Maybe a puppy? Puppies are cute."
"Maybe," he said. Before he could see her reaction to the victory, he turned to go pay the traders for letting them come along unremarked. It was the last of their money. They'd need to rely on the others they were meeting from here on out.
The two of them forged a meandering path through the gentle hills, away from the thin crowds of people on the outskirts of the village. The field swiftly gave way to light woods, and Fenris reluctantly let Merrill pick her way through them. "How have you not forgotten how to put up with all this dirt after years in the city?" he asked.
"There's plenty of dirt in cities," she said, pulling aside some thin branches.
"It's different," he said, but they'd discussed this before. It was familiar ground now, unlike the strange Antivan valleys they picked their way through.
"But you know what I did miss, those weeks in Starkhaven," she said thoughtfully. "Having my feet free. Ugh, I couldn't stand wearing those shoes all the time."
"Neither could I," he said. "I don't see the point."
"Exactly," she said. "The Creators gave us feet for walking on; why put strange things between them and the dirt?"
He rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure that's how I'd put it. But yes."
Merrill smiled at him. He looked away.
The scattered trees fell away after not much longer to reveal a small clearing pushed up against a low bluff. Fenris stopped as he saw who waited for them. "I thought Isabela was meeting us here," he said.
"Believe me," Anders said, "if it were up to me I wouldn't have anything to do with either of you."
Hawke hit him lightly with the back of her hand.
"Oh," Merrill said. "Hello, Hawke!"
Fenris inclined his head as Merrill ran to her. "Hawke."
She put an arm around Merrill to hug her. "It's good to see both of you."
"Everyone was wondering about you, Hawke," Merrill said. "Where were you and Anders?"
"We were visiting the Imperium," Anders said, glancing sidelong at Fenris without any subtlety.
Fenris fixed his gaze on Anders deliberately. "I assume you enjoyed it."
Anders drew himself up and braced his shoulders against the air. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. It was rather nice being treated like a real person for once, instead of a...oh...what's the word..."
Fenris felt the familiar call to arms of a battle that would never end or be won by either side rising in him. He opened his mouth to supply the word Anders made such a show of looking for, along with several other, more choice ones.
Merrill interposed herself before he could. "It bothered you, didn't it?" she said. "You won't admit it to Fenris, Creators forbid either of you ever learned to tolerate the other. But you don't like seeing the innocent suffer, neither of you do, really."
Anders turned to look at Hawke for help. She looked back at him and folded her arms. He sighed. "Yes, all right, it bothered me. It might be a better way than what we've got here with the Circle, but it's...not what I imagined. Maybe we really do need something completely new, if there's ever to be justice in this world. I don't know." He flashed her a resentful look. "Who are you to talk about innocence, anyway?"
Fenris found himself speaking up. "She knows a great deal more of it than you."
Anders blinked. "Did you just defend her?" He looked at Hawke. "Did he defend the blood mage?"
Hawke shrugged and spread her hands.
"Is this an elf thing?" Anders frowned, then looked hopeful. "Is he possessed? It would be hilarious if he were possessed."
"He's not as bad as you think, Anders," Merrill said. "Not all the time, anyway. Did you know he can smile?"
"Stop that," Fenris said.
Hawke coughed meaningfully and said, "Is everything taken care of in Starkhaven?"
"Yes," he said. "Sebastian was training templars as assassins, but we put a stop to that. You should be safe for a while longer now."
"You too," Merrill said to Anders.
"Neither of you did it for me," he said.
"That's right, mage," Fenris said.
"I did it for both of you," Merrill said, sighing.
"From here," Hawke said, "we'll take Merrill to Rivain to meet Isabela."
Merrill made a face. "But she still won't take me to Llomerryn."
"Trust her when she says you wouldn't like it there, Merrill," Hawke said. "Fenris, where are you going?"
"Aveline is in Wycome," he said. It occurred to him that this could be the last time he ever saw any of them. Nothing was certain, anymore. He wasn't sure how to feel about that, but he had the faintest suspicion that he might miss them. Except for Anders, of course. "I'll be staying on the outskirts to help keep her informed."
"That won't be conspicuous at--" Anders stopped in mid-rant. "Oh," he said.
"What?" Fenris said.
Anders knelt down. "Oh," he repeated, "aren't you adorable?"
The kitten meowed as it peeked around Merrill's legs. Fenris lifted a hand to his forehead, composed the most neutral expression he could manage, and wondered what kind of puppies they had in Wycome.
"Will you stay with us for the night, Fenris?" Hawke asked. "I hear the inn at the next village serves a wonderful dinner."
"You only ever think about food," Anders muttered.
Fenris considered the offer. "Just for the night?"
"Just for the night," Hawke affirmed. "Anything else would be too suspicious right now."
"Then the night it is," he said. "I think I'd like that."
Fandom: Dragon Age
Characters: Fenris and Merrill, appearances by others.
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 16,687 (9,458 in the second part)
Notes: Post-game, so spoilers. Assumes a female rogue or warrior Hawke in a romance with Anders.
Summary: A surprising find sends Fenris and Merrill on an undercover investigation in Starkhaven, pitting them against royal enemies and--more importantly--their own personalities.
« PART I »
The days, then the weeks, edged by in a slow and tense procession. Fenris tried not to see much of Merrill. It shouldn't have been difficult. He slept through most of the days, staying awake in the daylight long enough only to put in a few hours of work at discreet tasks closer to the market that paid the meager sum the two of them needed to get by. Merrill, for her part, did odd jobs around the alienage, which paid even less, but did, he had to admit, ingratiate her with the locals. Come nightfall, Fenris put his armor back on as always and headed to the nobles' quarter.
Despite there being no need for their paths to cross much, Merrill tried to talk to him when they did meet. She asked after his nights by the estates, and she suggested incessantly that he try to make friends with the others in the alienage, like she was doing. She didn't dare impress upon him the Dalish stories that she was telling the children, but she did suggest he tell them stories of his own that he had read.
She also tried to make him pet the kitten.
His nightly investigations bore little fruit. The Starkhaven nobility was abuzz with the news of the Loerich daughter vanishing, and even the servants voiced their thoughts on whether they believed she'd been kidnapped by her long-lost mage lover or whether she'd taken off in pursuit of him of her own volition. In the face of all that useless gossip, Fenris could barely gather scraps of useful information. The trade in enchantments was growing strained as the Circles became unstable; the hours of Starkhaven's templars were unusually long lately; word was the Champion had been seen in three places at the same time. That last one was less useful and more entertaining. The information about the local templars was potentially useful, but their training grounds were scattered throughout the estates, usually in places that were difficult to penetrate, and Fenris could not risk investigating them further without a more solid lead and better details.
And so it went, until one night he found himself turned back from the estates early by a heavy presence of guardsmen--a particularly bold theft had excited the nobles, and he couldn't risk stalking their properties amidst that. Resigned to calling the night a failure, Fenris made his way back to the alienage. As he approached the square again, though, an unexpected light made him tense. He slowed, readying his hand to reach for the sword (whose size he was still getting used to).
But when he came close enough for the scene to resolve, he saw that he needn't have bothered worrying. It was just Merrill, for once not abusing anything with her magic. She sat under the vhenadahl with a small torch in her hands, surrounded by a meager crowd of interested children brave enough to emerge from the scant safety of their hovels for, he presumed, a chance to hear the so-called old stories. He grimaced and stalled just outside the square, not wanting to pass by the little crowd and hear Merrill's sanctimonious voice cooing over the Dalish tales. But with a sigh, he steeled himself to go on by anyway.
Then he stopped as he registered just what she was telling the children.
"--vision waiting in the Beyond. In the time of Arlathan, they said, Dirthamen had left it buried in a secret place there, and even he had not known its purpose." She clutched, white-knuckled, at the torch, its flames casting shadows over her face.
Fenris had read about this story and how it was created during the establishment of the Dales. He knew where this was going.
"But in the trance that had fallen upon him, Shartan hunted through the unfamiliar lands of the Beyond." She wasn't a very good storyteller, speaking as haltingly as she did, but she was earnest, and that kept the children paying attention. "For the first time in his life, he ventured out of his own dreams, guided by Andruil's arrows. There he found the buried vision, and he awoke as the magisters were putting him to the flames with the human prophet. With his last breaths, he told his people...our people! He told our people that the old gods waited for us in a new land, and there we would be free."
"But they didn't." Fenris didn't recall making the decision to speak. He hated when that happened. But he was committed to it now, so he strode out of the shadows and into the feeble torchlight. "Even now you teach that the gods of Arlathan are locked away."
"Perhaps we weren't given enough of a chance to revive them," Merrill said quietly. "Maybe they're still waiting."
"Believe that if you will," he said. "The story's false, though. Apocryphal, invented by the first Dalish to give their stories of old gods legitimacy. The few accounts of Andraste's martyrdom that mention Shartan all agree on one point: he was unconscious when put to the flame. The Tevinter soldiers were unable to subdue him any other way."
"Those stories are human ones," said Merrill. "Of course they wouldn't dare admit that an elf had anything to say to his people."
"You miss the point," he said. "If he'd woken before his death, the magisters would have taken great pains to mention it. They drew as much pleasure from their enemies' suffering then as they do now. Luckily for us, they've forgotten some of the ways they used to draw power from it as well." He was still bitter from hearing her story, and he knew even as he spoke that he shouldn't have been saying some of these things in front of the group of children. But he did it anyway. "I'm sure you consider that a great loss. Perhaps you'd like to rediscover their methods?"
Merrill glared at him for a moment, then forced herself to look away, back at her listeners. "Everyone, this is Fenris, my companion in our travels."
A couple of the youngest children edged away. Another asked, "Are you Dalish too, Fenris?"
"No," he said. "I am Tevinter."
A boy started to speak up. "But I thought the elves in the--ow!" An older girl next to him had stepped on his foot, hard. "Oh. Oh."
"I want to hear your stories, too," a familiar voice chimed in abruptly. It was Arilen, on the edge of the group.
"I have no stories," he said. "None that I wish to tell." But the small crowd was looking at him now, seven pairs of wide elven eyes shining in the firelight. He thought of Merrill's stupid tale of the vision Shartan had never had, and he sighed. "If you're going to hear lies about Shartan, there are better ones. On the journey away from the Imperium after Andraste's death, the elves made a game of inventing the most absurd tales they could imagine about him. After the fall of the Dales, those of us who wound up with the humans found writings about the practice and revived it."
Merrill frowned. "That sounds awfully disrespectful," she said.
"Do you know many of them?" asked the girl who'd stepped on the younger boy's foot.
Fenris grinned. "I know every one recorded in writing."
"Oh," Merrill said. "You smiled! Is your face going to break? I can't help you if your face breaks."
He walked over to her, leaned down, and took the torch. "In 1:33 Divine, a dwarf challenged Shartan to a beard-growing contest. In 3:02 Towers, the same dwarf was found by human hunters, beardless and weeping."
Merrill frowned, started to lift a hand, then stopped.
"In a fight between the Maker and the Archdemon, Shartan would win."
A few of the children stifled gasps at the blasphemy. One giggled.
"A bear tried to eat Shartan once. It never recovered its teeth or its intestines, but it always considered itself lucky to have met him."
Merrill and one of the children simultaneously wrinkled their noses in thought.
"Shartan's tears are the only known cure for the Blight. Too bad he has never cried. Not once."
The children were silent, waiting for more.
"A king once raised a legion of mages to move a mountain that stood in the way of his conquering army. When they reached it, they had to turn around and go home, because Shartan had moved another mountain in front of it."
One boy clapped.
"There once was another nation in Thedas. It looked at Shartan funny." It was strange. "The Divine once declared an Exalted March on Shartan. It was later called the Exalted Apology For Disturbing Shartan's Supper." He was actually enjoying this. "Amongst a barbarian tribe of Ferelden, they tell--" Fenris cut off as he felt Merrill tugging at his gauntlet. Frowning, he pulled his hand away from her. "What?"
"It seems a terrible shame to interrupt you," she said, "but the children were supposed to go home to their beds after I finished that last story."
"But I want to hear more," the boy who'd first spoken said.
"Tomorrow," Merrill said firmly. The group reluctantly began to disperse.
After a minute, though, it was clear that one girl wasn't leaving--the oldest of them, by the looks of her, at fourteen or so. Instead, she approached the two of them. "I'll go soon, Merrill, I promise," she said. "But this is important. I mean, you were asking about these things."
"What is it, Emmea?" Merrill said.
"My aunt works in the kitchens and cellars at the Eislend estate," she said, "and I overheard her telling my mother about it. There've been a lot of shipments passing through the mansion to a nearby square where templars are trained--" Fenris leaned in a little. Emmea glanced at him apprehensively, then continued. "And last week, two servants carrying a crate accidentally dropped it and got sick. My aunt checked later and found broken vials of poison inside. I thought that sounded like the sort of thing you were looking for."
"It is," Merrill said. "Thank you."
"Where is the Eislend estate?" Fenris said. "And is there a way of getting to it without attracting notice?"
Emmea hesitated.
"What's wrong?" Merrill asked.
"Whatever happens, there will be no way of tracing it to your family," Fenris said. "I promise."
Emmea bit her lip. "If I show you the servants' passages, there might be."
Fenris glanced at Merrill. "Go and get a sovereign. We can spare it."
Emmea's eyes widened. "I can't take a whole sovereign! You..."
"We have allies beyond this alienage," Fenris said quietly. "You do not. Save it, for now. Using the money right after giving information to us would be too suspicious."
She nodded. "You're right."
Merrill frowned, then headed for the attic.
Emmea looked after her for a moment. "I'll show you tomorrow," she finally said. "I liked your jokes, by the way."
Fenris smiled. "What makes you think they were jokes?"
* * *
In the end, it took three days to prepare for the trip into the Eislend mansion. Most of that time was spent hunting down and procuring a heavy jacket with the family crest on it for Fenris to wear over his rather conspicuously spiky armor. He was already going to be moving through the cellars of the estate carrying a large sack containing a sword; he needed some way of granting himself some legitimacy.
Eventually, their host in the alienage helped them out by stealing the crest from a friend of a customer, and Arilen sewed it onto the jacket after Merrill's fourth failed attempt. The two of them then retired to a corner where Arilen could teach Merrill how to handle a needle, while the kitten batted infuriatingly at spools of thread.
"Do you know how many people in the Eislend mansion have connections to the alienage?" Fenris asked the prostitute whose attic they were lodging in as he tried not to watch this spectacle.
"Why do you ask?" The man's name was Sef. He was getting ready to go out to market and so was dressed and made up to pass as human. Fenris had seen him prepare to go to his job, and he looked very different then, when he needed to emphasize his elven heritage to draw in the human clients who favored that.
"Too many, and the link will be obvious if I'm discovered," Fenris said. "Too few, and it will be too easy to narrow down to one family."
Sef shook his head. "Nobody would connect you to the alienage."
"I would have thought that a compliment, once," Fenris said. He suspected it was true; Sebastian's men likely had descriptions of all of Hawke's companions, and his no doubt made a point of mentioning his preference for Hightown mansions. That would be useful here.
"And now?"
He looked away. "I'll go tonight," he said.
When Emmea had mentioned servants' passages, Fenris had imagined a few connected cellars beneath each mansion. What they turned out to be was something much more useful: the renovated remains of an old sewer system from when Starkhaven had been less wealthy and only the elite center of town had been able to afford such a luxury. Many tunnels between different estates had been blocked up to prevent theft, but a few remained, either from neglect or intention. No wonder gossip spread so fast in the estates. Servants flowed back and forth like a tide beneath them, mingling and sharing news, the occasional joke, and the rarest of stolen kisses. A few of them looked askance at Fenris as he made his way through at night, but most backed off at the sight of the Eislend crest on his coat. So long as he avoided the paths known to have particularly sharp and well-paid guards posted, he would be fine.
He'd intended to walk right up to the square of the templar training grounds and climb out in the corner of the yard. Approaching the bend in the passage that would lead to that exit, however, he heard the tread of exceptionally heavy footsteps coming from further down the hall. He ducked back, pressed himself against the wall, and waited.
"Stop pacing." The voice had a trace of the accent of Starkhaven nobility--definitely a guard and not a servant.
There was a cough, and the footsteps stilled. Fenris waited for more chatter, but these men were well-trained, and they knew that uninitiated servants were nearby. They weren't going to reveal any secret plans here. He retraced his path back down the passageway, looking for another exit.
A door swung open not far away, and a woman in plain clothes, a human servant, ran down a nearby staircase and out into the main underground hall. She skidded to a halt at the sight of him, illuminated by the lantern she held. "Oh," she said, taking in the Eislend crest on his jacket and the large sack in his hands, "you must be delivering the lyrium."
He raised a brow. "Am I to give it to you?"
"Of course," she said. "Master Eislend has all the deliveries for the new templars routed through me. It's not something the--" Looking at him, she stopped, checked herself, and revised her statement. "It's not something just anyone can be trusted with."
"Really," he said, pleased with his luck but careful not to show it. "Why can't the templars handle their own lyrium trade?"
She shook her head in disapproval. "The Prince has been pushing them too hard. I don't know how he got authority over templars, but they say he's rearranged their training completely here. They need more supplies than the Chantry normally allows for." She held up her hands. "That's all I know. Are you going to give me the lyrium or not?"
"I was told I'd be handing it over to a man," he said. "Perhaps the dwarf was confused, or perhaps he knew something neither of us do. I'll return once I've spoken with my contact." Before she could object, he gave a slight bow and strode off down the hall.
His luck held out around the next bend, where a ladder led up to the surface. He checked the location against his memory of the maps and pictured where it should come out. Not far outside the walls of the templars' square. Good. This was clearly the place, but he needed to learn more about what they were doing here before he could go back. He wasn't likely to have another chance to return here.
Fenris climbed up the ladder, swung open the grate above, and pulled himself out of the passages. It was dark out, and he could make out no one nearby enough to see him. Another stroke of luck. He took off the coat, then pulled his sword out of the sack and hefted it in one hand, then checked its balance with two. Not as firm or heavy as he'd have liked, but he made do with what could be smuggled, around here. He made his way to the wall surrounding the square and started following the noises from within.
There weren't many. It would have been better to come in the morning, for purposes of information-gathering, but he would never have made it here unseen. He'd been fortunate enough on that account even now. From the sounds of armor jangling, though, there were definitely still templars in the courtyard. The strange part was that those same sounds weren't as loud or metallic as he'd have expected from templars. They were more lightly armored than usual.
A stray conversation between two off-duty trainees confirmed this: they were being taught to use lighter armor, and they weren't pleased with it. The older one cut the newer recruit off before he could breathe a word of why, though. That was all right. Fenris was starting to form a decent picture of what was going on here. Templars being trained as assassins. A clever use of Chantry resources, indeed.
Aside from that brief exchange over the armor, though, and one complaining about the late hours tonight, "even if the reason is obvious, of course, and we're supposed to be grateful he cares," Fenris overheard nothing of interest from the templars. Either they were gathered somewhere too far for him to hear anything, or they were being well-behaved at the moment. Or both.
Instinct honed over the years sent a warning trickling down his spine after his second circuit of the wall. It was time to go. Whatever was keeping the templars so docile tonight was a danger to him as well. The grate he'd left the servants' passages through was just across the lane; he would be gone before anyone other than the woman in charge of deliveries for the Eislends knew he'd been here.
He got close enough to resolve the dark shape of the half-open grate before the suspicion lurking at the back of his mind exploded into frantic alarm. A pale bright figure atop the courtyard wall, something coming at him, he had to move before he could get a better look--
The first arrow whistled past his neck, and he realized a second too late, as the next shot slammed into the edge of his breastplate and cracked the rib beneath it with a shock of pain, that it had never been meant to hit. The aim was to debilitate him and take him alive.
"I thought the servant a liar when word came of what she had seen, Fenris."
Over the past nearly two years, Fenris had let sentiment cloud his recollections of Sebastian Vael. He recalled a man of earnest and polite if irritatingly naive and occasionally hypocritical honor, dedicated to the memory of his family; a devout believer who preached to everyone equally; an adherent of the Chantry who espoused sensible principles on magic in a time when nearly everyone else around them seemed to be going mad on the matter. He had forgotten the impetuosity and impatience. The overwrought flair for drama.
He lifted his sword to deflect the next arrow. "I hope you didn't have her beaten by your new recruits." Another shot, barely dodged. "What does the Chant have to say about politicians who use templars for their vendettas?"
Sebastian made an excellent target for a ranged fighter up on the wall, brilliant in the moonlight on his white armor. It was too bad Fenris didn't have any such allies at the moment. "The Maker blesses some causes above others. Surely you of all people understand that!"
Fenris reached the far wall, but that entrance to the tunnels was useless now. They were surely being patrolled for his presence, and he'd have to find somewhere else to enter. "You think you have the right to tell me what I understand?"
But Sebastian was not content to let the true question go unasked. "Hawke and her maleficar stand for everything that has made you suffer! How can you defend them even now?"
The sudden and familiar bloom of rage made him sloppy. Fenris curled his mouth into a snarl. "I will choose who I--"
Two arrows in quick succession tore through his arms, just shy of the arteries, and pinned him to the wall. Pain almost dazed him for a moment, and he reeled against the solid stone, barely keeping his hold on his sword. In the ensuing break in the onslaught, Sebastian climbed nimbly down the wall. Fenris wondered distantly what his templars thought of that rogue training of his.
"I will not have you killed," Sebastian said. "The Maker demands that we show mercy to those who wrong us, and we were not always enemies." He was still approaching. Did he really think the pain had staggered Fenris for more than a second? More fool, he. "And you know where Hawke and Anders are."
Fenris laughed, low in his throat.
Sebastian paused, suddenly and belatedly wary.
"Absit invidia." The familiar and inescapable old magic crawled through his flesh, and he left the arrows behind in the wall, still dripping with his blood. He solidified again inches from Sebastian and struck the bow from the prince's hands with his sword. "You mean me no harm, is that right?"
Sebastian stumbled back a step. "I--"
His mind clouded by all the blood and focused so intently on the man before him, Fenris barely registered the approaching footsteps until they were too close. Maybe if they'd been wearing heavier armor, he'd have heard them sooner. As it was, the templars almost seemed to materialize around the scene: two of them behind Sebastian, three behind Fenris. Already wounded, he stood no chance against so many fighters--on their own, yes, certainly, but not with more no doubt on the way.
Sebastian steadied himself. "Give yourself up, Fenris," he said.
Fenris smiled. "What do you think happened to every other man who told me that?"
The templars behind him rushed. He ghosted back from the charge, only narrowly avoiding their blades. Next time, he would not be so lucky, and they were already turning to regroup.
He braced himself and wished again that he had a larger sword. They came at him.
Fire blossomed in the air just in front of him, slamming back Sebastian and his templars and faintly singing Fenris himself. Merrill's voice hissed in his ear. "Come quickly!" She was right. The smoke would only hide them for a few more seconds.
Somewhere in that smoke, Sebastian screamed in fury. "Show yourself, Anders! I will see true justice done this night!"
Fenris ran, focusing on Merrill's fleeing figure in front of him. She bounded around the corner, raced across an avenue, scrambled over a fence, and jumped. She landed in the canal below with a splash. He followed her approvingly. Departing by water was the only way they wouldn't leave a trail of blood showing the way to the alienage.
The sound of chaos and pursuit dimmed behind them. As they trotted along a shallow ledge, Fenris felt a chuckle bubbling up.
"What?" Merrill looked back at him, wide-eyed. "What's funny?"
"He thought you were Anders." Fenris found himself barely holding in the hysterical edge on his laughter.
Merrill frowned. "He did. Does he really think Anders is the only one who can manage a good fireball?"
"He's obsessed," Fenris said. "And it's dulled his wits if he thinks I would put up with that lunatic long enough to--" He sagged against the wall of the canal, barely catching himself in time to avoid leaving a bloodstain on the stone. He had questions to ask, he realized: how Merrill had known he would be in trouble and managed to arrive in time to help instead of being distracted by a nearby flower or rabbit, and what they would do now. But right now it was hard enough just to keep his feet moving in a straight line. "We can't go back to the alienage," he said. "We put them in danger now." Sebastian's vendetta was both amusing and useful now, but he would come to his senses soon enough, and then he would realize it was Merrill who had interfered. The next conclusion would not take long to make.
"We can stay there just a little more," Merrill said. "I think. Besides, Arilen said she would be sad if either of us died."
That was his last clear memory of the night. The rest of the journey back was a bloody haze.
* * *
He dreamed of happiness and knew, with detached awareness, that it was a dream. Hawke was not his cousin come to visit a comfortable house in a peaceful village, and surely in waking life he would not have allowed Merrill into his home without good reason. It was strange, though, for he often dreamed of Hawke tending to domestic life with him these days. Sometimes he also had a fire for Varric to tell stories by, and often he heard the sound of Aveline teaching children to defend themselves out in the yard. On occasion he even found Isabela in bed, though he certainly regretted the one time he'd let this fact slip to her in reality--or at least her inability to stop teasing him about it. But this was the first time Merrill had been there, or at least the first time he'd let himself remember her presence.
Hawke's dog kept sitting squarely on his right arm, and for some reason he did not question the fact that Merrill's kitten clinging to his left arm was just as heavy. Such was the nature of dreams. But slowly the memory filtered through to him of why it was happening, and Fenris drew himself up to wakefulness with the usual easily suppressed reluctance. The dull aches of his dream intensified to a throbbing and were joined by a companion in the form of his cracked rib. He sat up and checked his bandages. They had been changed at some point while he slept, and the blood had not yet soaked through the new ones.
Merrill's laughter rose up from the house below, and for a peculiar moment he felt as if he had not yet awakened after all. The sensation passed, leaving him still weary and aching. He glanced at the dusty window. It was afternoon outside. He had slept too long.
Fenris couldn't make out the details of the conversation going on below, but now that he turned his attention to it, he realized that there were three different voices. Two he recognized as belonging to Merrill and Sef, but the third was unfamiliar and bore an accent he hadn't heard in the alienage, though it was common enough in the markets here. He had a fair guess as to who it was, but he wasn't sure whether this would help them or complicate matters further. He put the question out of his mind for the time being, along with the hunger and thirst that followed blood loss, so that he could dress. Had Merrill really needed to strip him to his underclothes to tend to his wounds? He put his armor back on; there was no point in hiding under disguises anymore.
When he made his way down the rickety stairs, the conversation in the rooms below slowed and stilled. He emerged into a kitchen with three faces turned to the stairwell in curiosity.
Merrill rose from her seat. "You're awake! Fenris, this is--"
"I'm aware," Fenris said. "Isabela's friend."
"As are you." He was quick to speak and not much slower to rise and then execute a flowing half-bow, an irritatingly affected gesture. "Do you know, some people say that when you make love to someone, it is as if you have made love to everyone they have as well?"
"Oh," Merrill said, sitting heavily back down. "Oh, that would be messy."
Fenris lifted a brow. "It's a good thing Isabela doesn't 'make love,' then."
Zevran laughed. "So she still gives that speech. I suppose it is part of her charm. My dear," he glanced back at Merrill now, "does your friend here ever smile, or would that disrupt the very sensual and attractive brooding?"
"He does smile sometimes," Merrill said. She glanced up at Fenris. "Is something wrong?"
"Other than the blood loss and the broken rib?" he said. "No. Why do you ask?"
"It's just that you haven't told him how I'm not your friend yet," she said.
"Ah," the Antivan said. "You are lovers, then? You make a charming couple. Tell me, is it an open relationship?"
Fenris closed his eyes and pressed the heel of one hand to his head. He heard a chair scrape against the rough floor, and when he opened his eyes, Sef was standing up to take something down from a shelf. It was a health potion.
"Here," he said. "Zevran brought some."
He grimaced automatically as he took the potion, uncapped it, and downed the draught. The pain in his arms and chest receded to dimness; though the injuries were still there, they were no longer severe enough to be debilitating.
"You always look like you tripped in a sewer when you make that face, you know," Merrill said.
He opened his mouth to tell her how much fouler than sewage he found the magic in these potions to be, but by the time he'd formed the words, he was struck with the odd realization that they were more automatic than angry, and somehow that stopped him. Instead, he said, "Why did you come after me last night?" It sounded a little wrong when it came out--as if he were asking about her feelings rather than a practical matter. So he added quickly, "You had no reason to believe I couldn't handle the investigation on my own."
"But I did," she said. "Soon after you left, Emmea got word that Sebastian was visiting the training grounds that night."
He frowned. "And you thought that reason enough?"
"Well, it was, wasn't it?"
She had a point. He set down the empty container and turned to Zevran. "Why are you here? This is a bad time to be near us."
"So I've been told," he said. "I am in Starkhaven on business of my own, but I've a message from Isabela with the details of where you should go when you leave the city." He held up a scroll. "Terrific timing, no?"
"She does have that," Fenris allowed, taking the scroll. "Sometimes."
"Ha," Zevran said. "I saw that smile."
He took the scroll, opened it up, and started to skim the instructions, but before he'd had time to gather more than the gist of the journey that awaited them, Merrill spoke up.
"Wait," she said, keen distress suddenly piercing her voice. "You're saying we're leaving?"
"We've uncovered Sebastian's plans against Hawke and Anders," Fenris said. "The longer we stay, the more danger everyone around us will be in."
"But if we go now," Merrill said, "he'll have a chance to move his operation and send more assassins after them."
Zevran leaned back thoughtfully against the wall. "He's using assassins?"
"He's training templars to use the methods of assassins," Fenris explained.
Zevran tapped a finger to his chin in consideration. "I cannot aid you in battle, of course; my fight lies elsewhere. However...it occurs to me that if I start a rumor that Prince Vael has stolen Crow methods for his own purposes, we may be able to turn our enemies against each other for a time. Who knows?" He shrugged expansively. "It may even be true. That's the beauty of it."
"I appreciate the help," Fenris said.
"No," Merrill said. "I mean, yes, that would be a great help! But it's not enough. We have to strike while we have the chance, now. Besides..." She wrung her hands nervously. "The more damage we do to them, the less resources they can spare to strike back at the alienage."
Fenris was prepared to unleash a retort, but he realized, almost belatedly, that her logic was actually sound. He closed his mouth to mull that over. Finally, he said, "What chance do the two of us have against a hall full of templars with poisons?"
"I don't know," Merrill admitted. "We'd have to be awfully quick about it, wouldn't we?"
"Yes," he said. "We would."
"But," she said, "if you protect me while I cast, I can turn powerful spells against the entire building."
He gritted his teeth against the rising knot of anger and disgust that came to him at the idea. "Templars are trained against magic. That's their purpose."
"I know," she said. "But we're faster than they are. And they aren't trained against Keeper magic."
He rolled his eyes.
"Are you going to give up a chance to defend Hawke, Fenris?" she asked, her wide-eyed gaze alarmingly sober and intense. "Because that's what running now would be, and you know it." She stood up again. "If you go now, I'll fight them myself."
"You are an idiot," he said.
"So you'll come with me?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "I'll fight."
Zevran grinned and murmured to Sef in a stage whisper, "It is as I said. They are the most charming couple."
Fenris ignored the assassin and turned to Sef himself. "There's a bag of coins by the bed upstairs. Pay off whoever you need to, but make sure word reaches the guard that after the battle, we fled towards Nevarra."
"Understood," he said.
"Make sure no one in the alienage mentions us. Bribe people, if you have to, but Sebastian is an arrogant fool, not a tyrant. So long as the evidence is thin and the people obedient, he won't attack his own citizens. Even the elves."
"Are you sure?" Sef asked.
"I knew the man," Fenris said. "He cared for his city, once...or at least his duty to it. I doubt he has abandoned that completely. Praise the Maker in his presence and you'll be fine."
Merrill nodded. "There'll be templars in here for a while, though. I know the alienage is one of the safer places for mages to hide, but make sure their families know to be extra careful in the coming days."
Zevran chuckled quietly. "Truly, I would love to stay for the spectacle, but I've the feeling I should conclude my business and leave before you begin your attack."
"But you never said just what your business was, Zevran," Merrill said.
"Mmm," he said. "No, my dear. I didn't."
She turned those eyes on him expectantly.
He smiled. "I will say but one thing. The Crows pour great effort into training their charges. Each of us...each of them possesses formidable killing power, honed like the sharpest of blades. But in the end, they're nothing but blades. They know nothing of fighting side by side with a friend, for one has no friends in the Crows. They understand fear, not loyalty. And should you know which threads to cut, they fall apart like cheap rags."
"It sounds very lonely," Merrill said.
"It is," he said. "But I'm no longer one of them. I am a free man."
Fenris looked at him and said nothing. The silence between them hummed with all the nothing he said.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Fenris," Zevran said, "and as much a pleasure seeing you again, Merrill." He leaned down to kiss Sef on the cheek. "Perhaps someday I'll travel longer with you. It would be most exciting, don't you think?"
"I'd like that," Merrill said. "Could you teach me some of the things Isabela and Varric keep saying they'll tell me when I'm older? I'm almost twenty-eight, you know."
He laughed and left her wondering. Fenris hastily stifled a grin. What they planned to do was madness, and he knew that it was real; yet somehow, a part of him wondered if he had yet woken up from his dream.
* * *
They left their belongings in a small boat at a shadowed dock off the usual paths of the city, guarded by a typically underpaid worker gifted with most of the rest of their money (or rather, half of it, the rest promised to him upon their return). Merrill took great pains to make sure the cat was comfortable there, even wasting time on seeing that it had food to eat.
"It will be gone when we return, you realize," Fenris said as they crept through the darkened alleyways on the slow approach to the estates. "Cats have no sense of gratitude."
"Nonsense," Merrill said. "Da'nehn knows I care for her. She likes you too, you know."
He sighed. "I know. It jumps on my head in the mornings."
She beamed. "They can tell when someone doesn't like cats. They're very smart that way!"
The plan was relatively simple. Earlier in the day, Fenris had seen that word was leaked to a small and hungry band of thieves that an opportunity waited in one of the mansions not far from the templar training grounds they needed to attack. His weeks lurking around the estates gave him enough knowledge to pad the claim with convincing facts, and the build-up of soldiers in the area was no doubt being kept under wraps for the time being. The thieves had taken the bait. They would surely flee as soon as they realized the information was false, but before then, they would provide a useful distraction.
Merrill, of course, had worried what would become of the criminals. Fenris had found himself wishing that Isabela was there to provide some reassurance for her, but there was nothing to be done save to tell her that most likely the thieves would manage to abscond in the chaos.
Now the two of them approached the estates from the bottom of a steep bank that conveniently kept them from flooding with a protection the lower quarters of the city lacked. Fenris grasped the bottom rung of a rickety and infrequently used ladder. "We'll have to be quiet from here," he said. "No more talking about the cat."
"Wait!" Merrill said, eyes widening. "There's something I thought of."
He stopped and looked at her.
"It's those stories you were telling," she said. "The jokes. I just thought that we should make some about Hawke."
"What?" he said.
"Maybe Sebastian's soldiers would stop and listen..."
Fenris rubbed his face.
"Or maybe we should wait until we're done and on our way out of the city," Merrill concluded.
"Yes," he said. "Good idea. Are you ready?"
"Of course," she said.
He swung up onto the ladder, and she followed. From here, they would approach the training grounds at an angle to the Eislend estate--not through it again, as it was no doubt guarded fiercely now, nor opposite it, since that was the front entrance to the templar square, but from the side. It was early enough that Sebastian and his men shouldn't be expecting them quite as much as they otherwise might, but late enough that activity nearby would be scant. This was the best they could do.
Holding onto the ladder and listening to it creak, he waited for the thieves to make their move. The minutes crept by. Merrill shifted her grip anxiously on the rungs below, and he suppressed the urge to snap at her. They couldn't afford to argue now.
Finally, a shout rose up in the near distance, followed swiftly by the clash of weapons. "Time," he said. "Let's go." And he vaulted up onto the stone ground and started running. Merrill followed, and they made for the templar square under cover of the nearby fighting.
They were nearly to the wall when the first templars emerged from the shadows: one a stocky woman quick on her feet, the other a rangy man wielding twin daggers. Fenris took the woman with a swift swipe of his sword to her chest. Her armor blunted the worst of the blow, but he heard bones crack all the same, and she staggered backwards, dazed. Meanwhile, a bolt of magic from Merrill winded the man, and she smacked him on the head with her staff as they ran by.
"Stand back!" Merrill said, but she needn't have bothered. Fenris was already bracing himself as she commenced casting. Seconds later, the tree nearest to the wall twisted as if in agony, nature magic uncoiling from its branches, then bucked into the wall, shattering the stone.
Fenris was first over the newly opened path, with Merrill following close behind. He slammed right into a knot of templars belatedly preparing for battle, scything out with his sword to take down the lot of them. He wished that, with the need for disguise over with at last, he'd been able to procure a larger sword, but there'd hardly been time. He'd make do with what he had.
The sounds of conflict from their intended distraction were fading as the templars and guards alike realized they'd been tricked and the thieves fled. Still, it would take the divided forces a precious handful of minutes to reunite. Fenris caught his breath and took in the scene around him. The nearest templars that hadn't been taken down by his blows were doubled over in agony, blood spattering the ground around them, as Merrill drew upon her demonic dealings. He checked to make sure she could pay enough attention to follow him, then ran for the main building. That was their target.
He planted himself in front of the door and ran his blade through the first templar to emerge. "Bring out your worst spells, witch," he called behind him.
Merrill answered him in furious, incomprehensible elven words and began to cast. The ground around them trembled slightly as it responded to her power.
He had no time to voice his contempt. He never had, when he'd fought at her side. It was strange, though--this was the first time he'd done it without Hawke to mediate. He wondered, briefly, if that should bother him, and then he struck down another templar that approached with a wicked poisoned blade.
Tendrils of raw magic rose up from the ground nearby, and he danced back instinctively as they lashed out with the force of the earth at the building. The stone shuddered, pieces of it falling and crumbling. In the rising roar of the falling rock, he almost missed the whistle of arrows headed for him and Merrill. Not Sebastian's, not precise enough to be Sebastian's, but other templars were trained as archers now. He deflected most of the arrows, then scanned the walls until he caught sight of the enemies. He pointed.
Merrill nodded, her face paler than usual. She unhooked a lyrium potion from her belt, hurriedly swallowed it down, then unleashed a wave of fire at the row of archers, followed by a larger storm of flames at the smaller buildings around the courtyard. She was sweating with effort now, he noticed. He would have to work hard to protect her so she could concentrate.
This was not a situation he had ever dreamed he would be in.
Most of the templars had fallen now, dead or too wounded to continue the fight, but the ones remaining were tougher and more clever than the others. He caught sight of a pair of them sneaking around to stab both of them in the back. Only quick thinking allowed him to take care of the two enemies: he shifted his sword to a single hand to slam it into one, then immediately phased his free fist into the other's throat. Blood fountained into the air, freezing in place halfway through its arc before falling abruptly to the ground as Merrill consumed its power.
He grimaced and swallowed his bile.
"Well, you weren't using it," she muttered defensively before downing another lyrium potion and lapsing back into her elven chanting.
He didn't dignify that with an answer, instead focusing his attention on slicing into another attacker. As the templar fell, so too did the roof of the hall at last, crumbling finally into the earth. The courtyard lay strewn with rubble and bodies around them. They had accomplished their mission. The hard part now would be getting out alive.
Fenris turned and grabbed Merrill's wrist. "We go," he said.
"But there are still--"
"We've done enough damage. They won't be able to recover from this."
She looked him in the eye. Even paler than before now, she was sweating copiously and shaking a little from exertion. She wasn't used to using such powerful magic in such rapid succession. Normally he took great pleasure in seeing mages exhaust their inner resources, the dark power within them drained dry at last, but now he worried. "All right," she said with a nod.
The arrow took her in the shoulder. If he hadn't been standing there, blocking Sebastian's view, it would probably have gone through her neck.
Snarling an oath in Arcanum, Fenris spun around. "You throw your men at us to die, then come when we tire? What a prince you are."
Sebastian stood atop the remains of two broken stone pillars at the entrance of the templar hall. He said nothing, but there was a betrayed fury in his eyes visible even from this distance, and he nocked another arrow.
Fenris did not stop to deflect it. He raced forward instead, sword at the ready, barely feeling the pain as the arrow lodged in his breastplate. Two more great leaping steps, and he was halfway up the pile of rubble Sebastian stood on. He realized belatedly, as an arcane bolt slammed into Sebastian's chest and sent him stumbling backwards, frustratingly quick to catch his balance, that Merrill had followed him despite her injury.
Sebastian finally spoke. "Why?" he said. He gestured vaguely at Merrill below them as if she represented this entire mad endeavor. Which she did. "Why, Fenris?"
He was stalling. From the shouts not far away, it was clear that the guards and the remainder of the templars would arrive soon. "I owe you no answer," Fenris said, because he had none.
"No," Sebastian said, "you owe me nothing." He had his next arrow pointed at Fenris now, but he was not loosing it. "But you owe yourself one."
Fenris jumped to close the distance between them and swung his sword. He wasn't aiming to kill--they could ill afford to be responsible for the death of a prince--but he did need to disable.
Sebastian half-dropped his bow and caught the flat of the blade in his hand, wincing at the pain from even the gentler than normal swing. But he regained his stance and stared unflinchingly at Fenris. There was a familiar pain in his eyes both more and less than the holy fervor he so claimed motivated him.
And in the end, that was what got Fenris to speak. That was what pulled words from his mouth that he'd barely allowed himself to think in fleeting moments of inescapable contemplation. "Revolutions come and go," he said. "Powers rise and fall. The Chantry will stand when this is done, though it may be changed in ways I would not choose. All that is beyond my control. But the people I hold close? They are mine to defend. I would not forgive myself if I let them slip away because of my hate."
Sebastian tried to muster a gaze of sanctimonious disapproval and pity. He only partially succeeded. "That is not the Maker's way, Fenris."
"Perhaps not," Fenris agreed. "But it is our way. Mine, and yours." Below them, reinforcements had arrived, and Merrill frantically flung ice and fire at them to thin their ranks and stagger their blows.
Sebastian's look hardened. "You question my faith?"
Fenris shook his head. "No. But why bother seeking Anders's death now? You know that madman was nothing but the spark. The fate of the rebellion rests with Hawke now."
The prince hesitated.
"It's vengeance you're looking to have," Fenris said. "For Elthina."
Despair unmasked flashed in Sebastian's eyes. Lightning quick, he pulled a knife from his belt and stabbed out at Fenris, who ducked and dashed back down the rubble to avoid it. In the reprieve granted, Sebastian lifted his bow once more, nocked an arrow, and fired at Merrill. She was far too exhausted to dodge in time.
Fenris knew, in the instant available to him, that he was better armored and could safely take the arrow with far fewer injuries than Merrill could. He moved automatically to intercept it as he fell. The arrow tore into his chest. It wasn't that bad. He could handle pain.
"Fenris?" Merrill said, wide-eyed.
He gritted his teeth. "Enough."
She turned around and blew Sebastian off his feet with a shock of magic. To his credit, he cried out only briefly as he tumbled down the pile of stones. But then, he had little reason to cry; his wounds would be the first ones tended to when relief came.
Merrill grabbed Fenris's hand and pulled him to his feet. They ran, though she was pale with exertion and he with injuries. They had health potions waiting, and for once, he would not complain when he drank them.
* * *
"I still have trouble believing the cat stayed," Fenris said as they climbed out of the trading caravan on its latest stop outside a village a few days' journey into Antiva from the border. They had a meeting to make this afternoon.
"Oh, you just don't know her," Merrill insisted, carefully helping the kitten down out of the wagon. "You should get a cat of your own sometime, Fenris. To keep you company. It would be good for you!"
"No," he said.
She sighed. "Maybe a puppy? Puppies are cute."
"Maybe," he said. Before he could see her reaction to the victory, he turned to go pay the traders for letting them come along unremarked. It was the last of their money. They'd need to rely on the others they were meeting from here on out.
The two of them forged a meandering path through the gentle hills, away from the thin crowds of people on the outskirts of the village. The field swiftly gave way to light woods, and Fenris reluctantly let Merrill pick her way through them. "How have you not forgotten how to put up with all this dirt after years in the city?" he asked.
"There's plenty of dirt in cities," she said, pulling aside some thin branches.
"It's different," he said, but they'd discussed this before. It was familiar ground now, unlike the strange Antivan valleys they picked their way through.
"But you know what I did miss, those weeks in Starkhaven," she said thoughtfully. "Having my feet free. Ugh, I couldn't stand wearing those shoes all the time."
"Neither could I," he said. "I don't see the point."
"Exactly," she said. "The Creators gave us feet for walking on; why put strange things between them and the dirt?"
He rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure that's how I'd put it. But yes."
Merrill smiled at him. He looked away.
The scattered trees fell away after not much longer to reveal a small clearing pushed up against a low bluff. Fenris stopped as he saw who waited for them. "I thought Isabela was meeting us here," he said.
"Believe me," Anders said, "if it were up to me I wouldn't have anything to do with either of you."
Hawke hit him lightly with the back of her hand.
"Oh," Merrill said. "Hello, Hawke!"
Fenris inclined his head as Merrill ran to her. "Hawke."
She put an arm around Merrill to hug her. "It's good to see both of you."
"Everyone was wondering about you, Hawke," Merrill said. "Where were you and Anders?"
"We were visiting the Imperium," Anders said, glancing sidelong at Fenris without any subtlety.
Fenris fixed his gaze on Anders deliberately. "I assume you enjoyed it."
Anders drew himself up and braced his shoulders against the air. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. It was rather nice being treated like a real person for once, instead of a...oh...what's the word..."
Fenris felt the familiar call to arms of a battle that would never end or be won by either side rising in him. He opened his mouth to supply the word Anders made such a show of looking for, along with several other, more choice ones.
Merrill interposed herself before he could. "It bothered you, didn't it?" she said. "You won't admit it to Fenris, Creators forbid either of you ever learned to tolerate the other. But you don't like seeing the innocent suffer, neither of you do, really."
Anders turned to look at Hawke for help. She looked back at him and folded her arms. He sighed. "Yes, all right, it bothered me. It might be a better way than what we've got here with the Circle, but it's...not what I imagined. Maybe we really do need something completely new, if there's ever to be justice in this world. I don't know." He flashed her a resentful look. "Who are you to talk about innocence, anyway?"
Fenris found himself speaking up. "She knows a great deal more of it than you."
Anders blinked. "Did you just defend her?" He looked at Hawke. "Did he defend the blood mage?"
Hawke shrugged and spread her hands.
"Is this an elf thing?" Anders frowned, then looked hopeful. "Is he possessed? It would be hilarious if he were possessed."
"He's not as bad as you think, Anders," Merrill said. "Not all the time, anyway. Did you know he can smile?"
"Stop that," Fenris said.
Hawke coughed meaningfully and said, "Is everything taken care of in Starkhaven?"
"Yes," he said. "Sebastian was training templars as assassins, but we put a stop to that. You should be safe for a while longer now."
"You too," Merrill said to Anders.
"Neither of you did it for me," he said.
"That's right, mage," Fenris said.
"I did it for both of you," Merrill said, sighing.
"From here," Hawke said, "we'll take Merrill to Rivain to meet Isabela."
Merrill made a face. "But she still won't take me to Llomerryn."
"Trust her when she says you wouldn't like it there, Merrill," Hawke said. "Fenris, where are you going?"
"Aveline is in Wycome," he said. It occurred to him that this could be the last time he ever saw any of them. Nothing was certain, anymore. He wasn't sure how to feel about that, but he had the faintest suspicion that he might miss them. Except for Anders, of course. "I'll be staying on the outskirts to help keep her informed."
"That won't be conspicuous at--" Anders stopped in mid-rant. "Oh," he said.
"What?" Fenris said.
Anders knelt down. "Oh," he repeated, "aren't you adorable?"
The kitten meowed as it peeked around Merrill's legs. Fenris lifted a hand to his forehead, composed the most neutral expression he could manage, and wondered what kind of puppies they had in Wycome.
"Will you stay with us for the night, Fenris?" Hawke asked. "I hear the inn at the next village serves a wonderful dinner."
"You only ever think about food," Anders muttered.
Fenris considered the offer. "Just for the night?"
"Just for the night," Hawke affirmed. "Anything else would be too suspicious right now."
"Then the night it is," he said. "I think I'd like that."