The Second time they met was on the Storm Coast.
Krem was in the middle of the skirmish, mid-fight adrenaline pumping through his veins, when throwing knife whistled past him and nailed the Tevinter mercenary he was struggling with in the throat.
The knife embedded in the man's neck killed him and that left Krem to turn and face the newcomer, because he knew that his own Skirmishers were not supposed to be behind him.
But it wasn't an enemy rogue with terrible aim, however, but a tumbling Herald of Andraste, slipping on the wet pebbles speckling the shoreline and struggling to retain her balance.
A loud, angry cry came from behind him as another enemy rushed to attack him from behind.
He spun around on his heels and hefted the maul and prepared to catch the sword on the haft.
The second Tevinter mercenary's sword clanged against the haft and they were locked in a struggle of strength, neither man giving any ground. Krem dug his feet in the ground, and the other man pressed down harder.
Quick as air, something snaked in front of him and a long thin dagger found its way through the mercenary's left third and fourth ribs, piercing his heart and killing him as well.
As he fell to the ground limp, the Herald stood up from her crouch in front of Krem.
His mind took as second to process the movements she had preformed.
She had slipped between and below him and the other mercenary and had knifed the man dead with a single strike.
She was damned good with knives.
He watched her yank the throwing knife from the dead Tevinter's throat and call out, "Behind you!"
He turned around once again to confront another enemy and felt in a moment her presence behind him, facing the other way,
"I've got your back!"
…
When the last man hit the ground with a dull thud and the skidding of pebbles, Krem rested his maul against a boulder and pulled off his helmet.
"Chargers! Stand down!" The Iron Bull ordered and the other Chargers sheathed their weapons and relaxed.
Krem looked up from the dented breastplate of another crushed enemy and did a quick scan of the Chargers, some of whom were wounded or resting on the ground.
"Krem! How'd we do?"
The Qunari strode towards him and Krem straightened up to stand at attention.
"Five or six wounded, Chief. No dead."
The Chief grinned "That's what I like to hear. Let the throat-cutters finish up, then break out the casks."
Krem nodded and moved to where Skinner and her people were to check on them.
When he arrived, Skinner seemed to have everything under control, if by 'under control' you mean sticking a knife through someone's face.
"Chief says that we can have a drink after finishing up."
Skinner stood up from the corpse and wiped blood off her knife blade with some ragged cloth.
"You cannot rush this."
"Right." Krem said, crossing his arms.
Skinner replied with a noise of disgust and signaled for her people to finish quickly and load the corpses into a small boat.
"What were you planning on doing to them?" Krem asked, nodding at the pile of dead bodies.
Rocky came up behind him and answered for Skinner, "Gonna blow it sky high."
Krem turned a disapproving look at Rocky, and the dwarf grumbled and backed down,
"Then we'll just burn it. With a little other something I've been working on." And he trudged off to fetch whatever dangerous invention it happened to be from his pack.
Krem didn't like the sound of that, but it was probably better than whatever version of Qunari black powder Rocky came up with this time.
Krem headed back over to The Iron Bull to report on the throat-cutter's status. The big lug was sitting down on a wet rock, facing The Herald of Andraste.
When he approached, Bull motioned towards him,
"I assume you remember Cremisius Aclassi, my Lieutenant."
"Of course!" She exclaimed, she turned to smile warmly at him, "It's good to see you again."
"Likewise." He nodded and smiled in return (maybe a little too cheekily), then turned to Bull, straight-faced again, "The throat-cutters are done, Chief."
"Already? Have them check again. I don't want any of those Tevinter bastards getting away. No offence, Krem." The chief laughed darkly.
"None taken, 'least a bastard knows who his mother was. Put him one up on you Qunari, right." He snarked as he walked back to the Chargers, smirking all the way.
When he was a little ways away he threw a glance over his shoulder at the Chief and the Herald of Andraste.
The rain had soaked into Adalyn's hair and turned the copper color to a medium brown hanging in a damp tangle down her back. She was talking to Bull while smiling politely and laughing occasionally.
Krem was glad to see her again and hoped that she and the Chief could work out something about the Inquisition.
He turned his head to look back at the Chargers, where Stitches was patching up a few of the men and a row boat piled with corpses was in the water and ablaze.
"If only I could keep these bandages dry!" Stitches grumbled and pulled a tarp to cover the crates of healing supplies.
"Problem, Stitches?" Krem asked coming over to him and the wounded company members.
Stitches stood up and placed his hand on his hips and shot a glare down the coast at The Iron Bull.
"If the Chief didn't take some of my poultices as shots just for kicks and if it would stop raining on my supplies, I'd be better." He said exasperation evident.
Krem cracked a smile and called to the unwounded Chargers waiting around.
"Pitch a tent over the crates, keep what we can dry."
The other Chargers helped him re-pitch some of their tents over the healing supplies and travel packs, leaving the casks out in the rain.
Krem checked on the wounded and once reassuring himself that they were all fine and in shape to walk and drink before rounding up the Chargers and the casks.
"Drink up, Chargers! Chief says we earned it!"
A rowdy cheer rose for the men and one of the front-line fighters, Roger, charged forward and heaved a heavy axe into the barrel's side.
Classic Roger.
Tankards were passed around, full to the brim with partly foamy ale, collected from the spillage that came from the gash wound of the cask that Roger had wrecked.
Krem held a tankard in his hand and sipped slowly, watching the Charger's laughter grow in volume and the rosy tint of tipsiness spread on their cheeks.
He never allowed himself to get drunk.
Ever.
Even in trusted company like the Chargers or Bull, the uneasiness was still there underneath all his armor. That low burning fear inside him that even during the six years with this company hadn't been extinguished.
If he lost his senses, who know what might happen to him? What people might think of him?
So he kept to himself, drinking carefully and quietly at the edge of the group until it occurred to him that the Chief might want to know about the drink situation.
He handed his tankard to a skirmisher named Sarah and headed down the coast to where the Herald and the Chief were talking.
When he approached, Krem knew Bull saw him, even though his eye stayed on the Herald.
"Krem, tell the men to finish drinking on the road. The Chargers just got hired!" The Iron Bull called out at Krem.
The Herald turned to look at him, a bright grin on her face and a hand waving in greeting.
"What about the casks, Chief? We just opened them up."
He thought of Roger.
"With axes."
That earned a peal of surprised laughter from the Herald. Krem silently commended himself.
"Find some way to seal them. You're Tevinter, right? Try blood magic."
At the end of the jest, Iron Bull winked (Krem had been in Iron Bull's company long enough to tell a one-eyed wink from a blink) at the Herald, who shot him a friendly smile.
He and the Herald watched Iron Bull go off to find the alcohol before she went over to him.
"Your word is as good as they come; the Chargers seem like an excellent company." She said.
"Yes. And you did good on your word. You came." He replied.
She came in person and that made him proud that she deemed his company excellent, she even fought with him.
"Here,"
He looked down at her, and found his kerchief (now clean) being pressed into his armored hand.
"I washed it. Twice, actually." She said, quickly moving he hands away from his and holding them behind her back.
He raised the kerchief to look at it and in the process caught the faint smell of lavender coming from it. He tucked it away in his belt satchel for safe keeping.
"Thank you." He said with a smile.
This prompted a surprised look from her, then a slight blush and smile. She quickly looked down at the ground.
"You are very welcome." She mumbled quietly, a slight blush appearing on her cheeks.
His heart made a painful lurch.
How is she this charming?
She cleared her throat and looked back up, "Now, what's this about casks? Maybe I can help."
He blinked and said quickly, "Don't think anyone can do much about it, but sure, if you'd like to try."
Hey walked over to the Chargers and found that a second cask had been axed and The Iron Bull was downing leftover mugs of ale while the Chargers were chanting, "Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!, and cheering.
Krem rolled his eyes in loving frustration and heard Adalyn snort-giggling beside him.
She, being small, could weave and duck her way through the Chargers to the casks while he had to part the crowd to walk through.
He watched as she placed a hand on the beginning of the crack and slowly smoothed her hand across the surface. The wood seemed to come alive and pull itself back together, the splinters peeling back into place and the edges smoothing until the second, still mostly full, cask was back in original condition.
Krem came up to stand beside her and checked her work, impressed.
"Magic?" He asked, tracing the place where the crack used to be.
She nodded, "Old seaman trick." She motioned to the sea and grinned, "I lived on a pirate ship a while back and they had me straightening water-warped planks day and night and air-drying the sails. They taught me to use regular, useful magic, even though I was—am- a blood mage."
Krem's mind balked for a good few seconds.
Blood mage. She said, 'blood mage'. Her?
She seemed too steady-minded for one.
In Tevinter, he knew what happened behind closed doors in the Magisterium and she did not fit the bill of a cruel slave-bleeder or a crazed apostate.
"They knew you were an apostate?" He asked, hoping for her to maybe fill in the gaps.
She shrugged, seeming unconcerned at the word apostate, "They were Revaini pirates. In Rivain, mages are just people."
Shit. I sounded like an ass.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean—we have mages among the Charg-" He rambled,
She waves a dismissive hand and smiled tightly, "No, no, it's fine."
"Did… you also learn how to fight with knives from them?" Krem asked after a moment of awkward silence.
"Yes," She took one of her sheathed knives from her belt and held it up, "This was a gift from the Captain when I joined on."
It was silver and had inlayed gold along the blade in the shape of leaves, it was a pretty thing but functional. It was maintained to be deadly, the edge was incredibly sharp, Krem noted.
She took good care of her blades, a habit he wished the rest of the Chargers would adopt.
She sheathed the knife and pulled a cord out from under her armor. It was fashioned as a necklace, and had a single piece of coral fashioned into a whistle fastened to it.
"This is a piece of coral I bought with my first payment as a pirate. A crewmate taught me how to carve it into a whistle. It is really important to me." She seemed to be glowing with pride, talking about her history and the things she had acquired.
Krem felt similar about his armor, Bull had bought him this set of armor six years ago, of course some pieces had been replaced, but it was more or less the same.
"I know how you feel." Krem motioned to his armor, "This armor is the first thing Bull gave me when I joined this Company."
She nodded, "You bought that in Kirkwall, didn't you?"
"Ah, yes. You saw the seal on the back."
"You were in Kirkwall?" She asked, sounding surprised but not unpleasantly so.
"Six years ago." He thought back to when he and Iron Bull went south through the Free Marches to Kirkwall from the Tevinter border.
She seemed to be counting numbers silently then said, "Hmm, I was there too at the time."
"Maybe we met." He suggested playfully
"No," She said smoothly, and looked up to lock eyes with him.
"I would have remembered if we had."
The feeling of electricity charging the air made the hair on his arms stood on end.
He smelled ozone, and for a second he though he must have not heard the roll of thunder before a nearby lighting strike, but there was no lighting.
There was only her; with her loose copper curls drying in the sea spray wind and her dark inviting eyes tined on his.
The rain had eased; the Chargers were done drinking and were packing up the camp. A call from one of the Chargers roused him from his trance.
He looked up and away, anywhere but her, and said
"I guess I will see you back at Haven."
He saw her straighten her posture at his voice, seeming to snap out of the lull as well.
It isn't just me.
He thought elatedly, his head a little giddy.
He turned a brief look to her; it was all he could dare.
"Your Worship,"
He said with a nod, and walked off to find his things and pack for the journey to Haven.
Decide now:
TEMPLARS or MAGES
(See you in the reviews)
