The Hunted
Chapter Two: The Flight from Kirkwall
Lowtown was in chaos. Thieves ducked in and out of houses, filching what few silvers they could find. Men and women ran shouting through the dark streets, fighting off the looters who preyed on the fear and bedlam that had broken out when Anders detonated the Chantry. Horses screamed and galloped down the streets, half wild without their masters. Bawling children clung to their mothers' skirts, desperate not to be lost in the twilight shuffle. Other Kirkwallers simply stared, aghast, at the flames eating their way across the skyline of Hightown overhead. The blazes weren't limited to the wealthy parts of the city, either. Fires – probably caused by wayward spells cast by fleeing mages – had broken out in several stalls and homes, sending even more panicked families streaming into the alleyways. Many shops and dwellings, including the Trinkets Emporium, had already been reduced to cinders. The city guardsmen who struggled to gain back some semblance of order by bellowing commands for water carriers to douse the flames and directing the civilians to safe locations went completely ignored.
The madness, which reminded Hawke of a giant ant hill that had just been torn open by a mabari, provided her and Fenris with the perfect means to slip through the streets unnoticed. Anyone who might have been looking for the Champion of Kirkwall and her accomplices would be hard pressed to spot them in all the pandemonium. Still, Hawke clung stealthily to the shadows, keeping her face down and out of the firelight. The last thing they needed was to get caught up in a battle that would waste precious minutes. Fenris followed her lead, padding barefoot behind her as they flitted swiftly and silently through the remnants of the Lowtown Bazaar.
The rhythmic grinding crunch of silverite boots about to turn the corner in the alleyway to their left alerted them to the presence of danger hurtling toward them. "Templars," hissed Fenris. His hand automatically flew to the hilt of his sword.
"We don't have time to fight them. Quick, we've got to hide." She caught his hand before it could unsheathe his blade and pulled him behind an overturned cart in front of Lady Elegant's potion stand. They dropped to the ground, bellies and chest plates pressing into the hard packed earth. The sweet smell of straw wafted up to their noses and temporarily softened even the acrid tang of burning tar. Through a gap in the cart planks, the two fugitives watched a small batallion's worth of Templar's boots storm past their hiding place only seconds later. The soldiers tore off in the direction of the Hanged Man, completely ignorant of the fact that they'd just run within hand's breadth of their quarry.
The danger past, Hawke closed her eyes and heaved a shallow sigh to help ebb the latest blast of adrenaline away from her nerves. Fenris had already risen to his feet and cast a vigilant eye around the market. Satisfied that the way was clear, he lowered his hand to the woman beside him. "Come, Hawke. It won't do to make Isabela wait. I doubt either of us would enjoy swimming out of the harbour." He offered her a faint smirk.
"I admit that drowning was not on my to-do list for tonight. But then again, plenty of other things I've just done weren't, either," answered Hawke after she leapt out from behind the cart. The couple dashed over to the stairs leading to Hightown and cast their gazes skyward. Hawke sobered for a moment. Fenris could see the blazing towers mirrored on her eyes as she spoke: "This is going to be awful, isn't it?"
"I imagine so. Keep your guard up."
They took the stairs two at a time, climbing hundreds of steps in a matter of minutes. When they finally reached the top and passed under the archway to the Hightown market square, the first thing they noticed was the smell.
"Oh, Maker," uttered Hawke under her breath and clapped a hand over her nose. Everything stank of death and smoke. The very air was saturated with the choking odor. Despite her years of hardening experience as a fighter, the rogue barely suppressed urge to wretch. Heaps of gore and debris littered the devastated ruin that was once the wealthiest district of Kirkwall. Tangled masses of wood and stone burned where houses and stores once stood, obliterated along with the Chantry. Smoking craters scarred the ground, soaked with blood. Countless people had died in the blast, crushed by the hail of stone and burned by fire. The flames still roared around them, howling with a rage that threatened to drown out all other sound. As she and Fenris entered what was left of Hightown, Hawke felt as though she had just passed over the threshold of Hell.
They hadn't taken five steps before they came across the first body. Having fallen so close to the stairs to Lowtown, the older man had probably died trying to escape the explosion. His back had been crushed beneath a tree. Judging from his charred, delicately smoldering skin, his corpse had only just stopped burning.
Hawke tore her gaze away from the body and hurried nimbly through the rubble, making her way down the crumbling streets. The once gleaming district had transformed overnight into a veritable labyrinth of debris and flaming wreckage. She and Fenris were careful not to tread on the bodies of Templars, mages, and civilians scattered across the quarter. They made their way past the blood-painted the walls and mountains of rubble littered with guts and limbs, searching for a way to the Hawke Estate that wasn't blocked by twenty-foot tall chunks of Chantry. Fenris had to step gingerly across the wreckage and bloody puddles to avoid miring his exposed toes in the filth.
Hawke turned another corner, gracefully vaulted over a hunk of Andraste's stone face, and slipped in a pile of wound slurry. Heart pounding wildly in her chest and eyes as wide as saucers, she starred at the small corpse she'd collapsed on. It was the body of a young mage apprentice; the girl couldn't have been older than twelve. Her head had been smashed by a well-aimed blow from the hilt of a longsword, and Hawke was lying in her brains. The woman nearly lost the battle with her gag reflex. She would have if Fenris hadn't immediately yanked her to her feet and pulled her tightly to his chest. Hawke could feel his hands roughly brushing up and down her back, and she didn't want to imagine what sort of material he was batting off her mantle. The wet, squelching sound it made when it hit the stones at their feet was telling enough. "Vivian, are you all right?" he asked, placing his gauntleted hands on the sides of her face.
Hawke took a second to even out her breathing. She nodded and put the steel back behind her eyes. "Yes, I'm fine. We're nearly there. It's just beyond that archway," she said, nodding to the East.
"Right. Let's move." Fenris released her, and the pair shimmed though a tight squeeze between two chucks of the estate that used to neighbour Hawke's. It had collapsed when a huge section of flying buttress from the Chantry had crashed into it.
"You're lucky this didn't flatten your home instead," the elf said, nodding to the wreckage.
"I never did care for split levels."
Fenris chucked darkly for a moment. "Let's see what's inside, shall we?" He reached out to pull open the door, but it flew open before his hand even touched it. A man with muddy eyes and a sackful of Hawke's belongings rocketed out of the estate like a cat with a hellhound on its tail. He ran straight into the outstretched foot the woman had placed to trip him, sending the man careening to the ground in a heap of limbs and stolen baubles. He lay there for a moment, dazed.
Fenris had his sword drawn in an instant, and Hawke's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Don't I know you?" she said. "Wait, this is the second time I've caught you burglarizing my home, isn't it? What do you think you're – Is that my chamber pot?"
"Well, there wasn't much stuff left by the time I got there, you see, Champion, and a man's got to make his living somehow." He barely managed to make the words stumble from his mouth, and his eyes jumped from between Fenris's glowering eyes and the tip of his blade.
"What ever happened to that honest work my mabari supposedly converted you to?" demanded Hawke. She might have been scandalized if she'd had the energy to spare.
"I tried. Really, I did! Got a job working the docks. Oh, please don't kill me, Champion! I swear I'll never touch nothing of no one's ever again!" He threw himself prostrate at her feet, groveling.
"Oh, Maker, please don't beg. It's too pathetic. Just go already."
The man needed no further encouragement and tore off into the ruins of Hightown, sack of stolen goods crashing wildly against his backside as he ran.
Fenris arched a brow at Hawke and replaced his sword in its sheath. "You realize that he still made off with your chamber pot, don't you?"
She scowled at the elf, who was clearly enjoying himself. "Not a word of this to Varric, understand? The last thing I need haunting me at every tavern I ever visit is the story of the man who filched my thunder mug."
"Oh? But he would have so much fun telling of how your beauty and prowess swayed grown men to worship even your humblest –"
"Fenris!"
"My lips are sealed," he said, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace, but Hawke still saw mischief glinting in their depths.
"C'mon, then. Let's find Orana and get the hell out of here." She passed inside the estate, which she found was shockingly devoid of decoration. The vultures certainly had been thorough. "Orana? Orana, can you hear me? Are you in here?"
She walked through the antechamber and into the main hall. Fenris, whose elf ears outstripped Hawke's, held up a fist to signal a halt. "Do you hear that?" he asked. "It's coming from in there." He led Hawke into one of the side chambers and up the stairs to the library. Hawke noticed that while all her other valuables had been nicked, her books remained untouched on the shelves. She wasn't sure if she felt pleased or disappointed. And that's when she heard the soft sobbing, which sounded more like a dove with a case of the hiccups than an elven maiden in tears.
"Orana? Is that you?" she said and hurried over to the wine casks across the room. She crouched down onto her hands and knees, peered under one of the giant barrels, and spotted her tiny, blonde housekeeper curled up into a ball, as if she were trying to make herself disappear. "Come on out, Orana. It's all right."
The elf ceased her crying and looked up. "Serah Hawke, is that you?"
"Yes, it's me. Now, come out from under there, will you? We've got to go now."
Orana quickly slipped out from underneath the wine cask and rose to her feet. Her lamp-like green eyes glittered with unshed tears. "You… you came for me, Serah. Thank you."
"Of course I did," said Hawke gently and clasped one of the elf's hands. It wasn't much smaller than her own.
"I'm so sorry. All these burglars… They came in, and I told them to leave, but they wouldn't listen. They told me they'd throw me in the fires outside if I didn't get out of their way. Please don't be angry with me. I was afraid."
The trepidation in Orana's voice almost made Hawke wince. She noticed Fenris's fist clench beside her. Even after years of being treated with kindness, dignity, and generous wages, the elf still struggled to shed the mentality of a fearful slave. " You've done nothing wrong, Orana. I'm just glad you're safe. Now, come on. We've got to run, okay? We've got to get out of Kirkwall." Once the elf nodded, Hawke took her hand once more and rushed back down the flight of stairs and into the main hall. She paused for a moment by the fireplace and hunkered down onto her knees.
"Hawke, what are you doing? We don't have time for sentimental goodbyes," said Fenris sharply.
"Trust me, we've got time for this," said Hawke as she pulled up one of the stones on the floor and lifted out a decent sized bag of coins. She stuffed it down her tunic and pushed herself back onto her feet. "Let's go!"
The race back to the docks seemed agonizingly slow to Fenris. Having lived a life of cooking, cleaning, and lute playing, Orana was no warrior and lacked the skill and endurance required to climb her way over the rubble strewn across Hightown. More than once, Fenris had needed to lift and hoist her over obstacles and pull her along as they ran. It had taken them too long to make their way back to Lowtown. He'd been counting down the minutes in his head since they left, and they were running out of time. He knew Isabela wouldn't wait beyond the hour she promised. She couldn't. Every moment they stayed docked in the harbour brought them all closer to discovery and capture. Or worse.
Mercifully, the streets of Lowtown were just as panicked and disorderly as they were when they'd rushed though before, and once again they managed to give any passing Templars the slip. Twice they had had to duck into darkened doorsteps or behind horse carts, but they were fortunate enough to avoid detection.
"We're nearly there, Orana. Just a bit farther," said Hawke.
The elf only nodded in response and brushed the sweat from her eyes. She was too out of breath to speak. She followed Hawke down a crooked, worn flight of stairs, and the sound of waves breaking finally met her ears. She made her way quickly down, careful to step over the occasional refuse pile that littered the way forward. They soon reached the bottom and continued their run. Orana knew from her infrequent trips to this part of the city that the docks for the seafaring ships were just up ahead. The thought brought renewed lightness to her steps, pushing her to run even faster around the corner –
– And straight into a fully armoured Templar. She crashed into the warrior with great clang and was knocked flat off her feet. The impact barely even caused the man she collided with to stumble, and he drew his sword in a flash. He instantly recognized Hawke and the strangely marked elf she'd been known to run with (rumour had it that they'd been doing a lot more than just running together) and called out, "Men, quick! I've found the traitors!" He was answered by several shouts and the sound of several pairs of silverite boots pounding down the alleyway.
"Oh shit," groaned Hawke as she drew her twin blades. She stepped over Orana and made ready to strike, but Fenris had already struck down the Templar and set off down the alley for the four reinforcements who had answered their fellow's call. "Stay low and stay back," she ordered to the frightened elf and tailed closely behind Fenris. He met the others with a bellowing roar and hacked the first two to pieces with a couple ferocious swings.
While they were distracted by the glowing, raging elf before them, Hawke stealthy flitted behind the two remaining Templars. Raising her short blades once more, she reached around the first and guided her dagger under his helmet to slit his throat. He fell sputtering to the ground. The last remaining Templar spun around in alarm and swung his longsword at Hawke's chest. There was barely any room to dodge his attack in the cramped alleyway, so she had to drop and roll out of the way to evade the hit. The soldier raised his blade again, preparing to strike, but the man's head suddenly flew from his shoulders, severed by Fenris's sword. The body collapsed to the ground in a bloody heap, revealing the elf still poised in his death strike.
Standing there with his sword raised, brands glimmering, and eyes blazing, Hawke had never seen anyone look more lethal. "Thanks," she breathed, panting softly.
His eyes softened as they held hers. "Anytime."
She rose to her feet and headed back a few paces to Orana, who was still cowering on the ground. "It's all right. I'm sorry you had to see that, but we've got to keep moving." The elf shakily pulled herself up and ran alongside Hawke, but she shot Fenris a horrified look as she rushed by him, as if she expected him to slice her head off next.
After just another turn down a separate alley, they emerged from the maze of fishing shacks along the docks. "Thank the Maker," uttered Hawke. "There's Isabela's ship."
A woman's moonlit silhouette appeared over the starboard rail. "It's about bloody time, Hawke!" Isabela called and kicked down a rope ladder. "Aveline got back nearly a quarter of an hour ago. You know, I was just about to leave you here, honestly. I had poor Merrill all in shambles."
"It's good to see you too, Isabela," said Hawke with a grin. She directed Orana to the ladder, which seemed to give the elf difficulty.
"Yeah, yeah, you think I'm joking." The smile in her voice betrayed the truth. "Untie those ropes anchoring us to the dock, will you? This'll be a pretty short-lived escape otherwise."
It took Hawke and Fenris only a few minutes to undo the knots, and they swiftly climbed up the ladder and onto the deck. Looking around, they saw Aveline and Donnic rushing about pulling cords. Bethany and Varric were busy pushing the ship away from the dock using long wooden poles. "Welcome aboard the Vaga de Noche," said Isabela, grandly sweeping her arm out across the deck.
Free of the ropes, the wind caught in the open sails and pulled the ship away from the dock and into the sound. The winds were high, and soon the ship was far out in the water, too far for any archer's arrow to reach. Hawke granted herself a moment to stand close to Fenris and prop her elbows on the railing. She heaved a sigh of relief into the salty night air. They had escaped.
A/N: Thank you for reading! I'm pleased to say that I've got the plot nicely outlined… Or at least the important chunks of it. For those readers who are lovers of love, we're getting to it, have no fear. I just don't want to sacrifice plot, movement, development, etc. for the sake of cheap thrills, although cheap thrills certainly have their place. Anyway, please review to let me know what you think. Good or bad, I'm anxious to see your thoughts!