Author's ranting:
Finally I'm finished with this chapter, now all that is left are two or three chapters for other stories, then I've roughly managed to keep my promises for the holidays in regard to fanfiction.
Anyways, as always speech is indicated by""
Thoughts are indicated by "" and written in cursive.
boldis used to emphasise certain things.
Disclaimer: And just because I love to do it, let me state a final time that I own nothing in this work of fiction except in a very small way my avatar's depiction and my words.
X
I love Hawke!
X
X
Chapter Four
X
X
Hawke had to act fast. There was no way to tell how long it would take until someone else came down here.
After one last glance at the two dead guards, she opened the door to the corridor and hurried along the dark passage.
Soon she reached the last door to the left.
She could hear nothing through the door, it was thick and well built, not a lot of sound came through it. She took the shield from her back and carefully slid her left arm through its attachment and gripped the handle with her hand.
All she had to do now was to draw her sword, when she was inside.
Hawke opened the door, stepped into the room and... froze in her tracks.
Her eyes couldn't accept what was in front of her.
Merrill's body hung limply in a big wooden chair, to which she was bound on her arms and legs with iron shackles. Her head lolled to the right, a small line of blood dripping from her mouth.
She was covered with cuts and bruises, open and already closed, a number of large cuts ran over her body and a dagger was buried in her side, above her hips.
A choked sound escaped Lorelei's throat.
She had known that the templars were not above torturing prisoners and to be honest she had expected that Merrill had suffered, but this...
Her heart raced so hard, it felt as if it would burst in her chest and she wasn't able to draw breath.
"Am I too late? Is she already gone. Oh Andrastes's grace! After all I've lost please don't take away what's most precious to me. Maker's breath, just let her be alive."
At last she came to her senses and sprung into action.
She bent her body down and to the right for more drive, before she swung her shield in an upward curve to the left, smashing it with all of her strength into the face of the first guard.
Then she spun around, turning the shield, so that it was almost horizontal and drove it into the other guards throat. With a sickening sound his trachea gave in and hands clutching at his neck he fell back against the wall, gargling.
The man standing beside Merrill hadn't moved; with wide open eyes he stared at the woman in front of him, simply not believing what his eyes told him.
That a superior officer had just walked in and dispatched both guards within seconds.
Hawke 's face was a stern mask, as she slowly drew the sword.
The man in a templar hunter's garb still didn't move, but slowly realization dawned in his eyes.
Before Hawke reached him, he finally drew his short swords and prepared to defend himself.
"Who are you? Wh-what do you think you'll achieve by doing this?"
Hawke walked closer, her movements now graceful and deadly like a panther's.
"Who I am? Well that's easy. I'm Lorelei Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall.
What I'm doing here? I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to take my love away from here to safety."
"The champion... but you are..."
He stopped and squinted his eyes, thinking.
"Your love?... What? You mean the elven witch? Then you are really... But she's already dea..."
"Shut up! Hold your lying tongue!"
"Even if she still breathes, how are you going to move her out of here, while fighting through a whole army of templars?"
Hawke forced herself to smile, she couldn't show the man how much she worried about Merrill.
"There aren't that many templars here at the moment, are there? Most of the garrison is running around in the woods, searching for an Apostate hideout.
We took extra effort to make it look convincing. Besides, until somebody finds your dead Knight-Commander or the guards in the guard station, no one even knows I'm here.
I don't plan on staying here that long."
"What's going to keep me from calling for help?"
Hawke smiled again, how typical.
"I'm not going to stop you. No one on this floor is alive, who isn't in a holding cell. The door is thick, the walls are thick and people are used to screams coming from a torture chamber."
"What if I..."
Hawke's temper rose.
"Enough talking. Defend yourself!"
She stormed forward and tried to shield bash the enemy, but the hunter despite being fearfully aware of facing the champion of Kirkwall on his own, quickly stepped aside and swung his swords against Hawke's unprotected back.
Hawke dropped to one knee and brought her shield up to guard her back.
With the shield she pressed the swords aside, twisted her body while turning upwards and swung her sword at the opponent.
The hunter jumped backwards so that the sword just grazed over his armour, without cutting it.
Hawke growled in frustration, she wasn't used to fighting with sword and shield, she wished she could have taken the Key with her.
The opponents circled each other, searching for an opening.
They exchanged a few careful blows, but nothing really threatening the others defence.
Hawke's mind raced, she had no time.
She decided to risk it and quickly let go of the shield, holding it at the edge and then she threw it straight at the Templar.
Her hands gripped the hilt of the longsword, like she was used too with her two-handed weapons and she lunged forward at her enemy.
Maeglin had crossed his arms before his face to stop the shield and instinctively took a step backward.
Hawke feinted a high chop with her sword, the templar moved to catch her blade with both of his weapons, at the last possible moment Hawke turned away and swung her blade past the guard and sliced from the side downwards into the templars thigh, tearing muscle tissue and flesh.
Maeglin's leg gave away under him and he struggled to remain standing.
In the next instant Hawke's knee rammed mercilessly into his wounded thigh.
The templar screamed in pain, fell down and clutched his leg with his right hand. Therefore he had to drop one of his blades.
The champion attacked unrelentingly; she swung her blade with both hands and stroke a blow against Maeglin's head.
The templar managed to block her blade, so she stroke again, once, twice.
With her third blow, Maeglin's guard caved in and her sword struck deep in the templars head and face.
With a wet, gargling noise, Maeglin's body jerked heavily, he dropped his last sword and began to shake convulsively on the floor.
Hawke buried her sword deep in his guts and then she wiped the blade clean on his tunic.
He wasn't dead, but with wounds like this he was sure to die in a matter of minutes and Hawke certainly wasn't going to give him a mercy kill.
Since her escape from Kirkwall something inside her had changed. Too often her mercy had been seen as a weakness, too many people had betrayed her trust, not the last of them Anders and Fenris. The murderer and the traitor.
X
She sheathed her weapon and hurried over to Merrill's side, dropping to her knees beside the elven sorceress.
A quick check on her throat reviled a faint pulse and Hawke sighed in relief. At least she wasn't dead already.
"Merrill? Merrill honey, please answer me. Don't die on me, Merrill. Don't leave me."
She stroke the elf's matted hair and gently pressed her brow against Merrill's.
Merrill didn't answer and Hawke wasted no more time.
With a few quick moves of her knife and a steel pin she opened the shackles and freed Merrill's arms and legs. She was thankful to Varric and Isabella for teaching her to pick at least simple locks.
In the next step she removed her borrowed templar surcoat and spread it on the ground and with the utmost care she placed the frail, wounded, nude form of the elven mage on the coat.
She quickly took out a healing poultice and carefully removed the dagger from Merrill's side. She cleaned the wound and gently applied the poultice, securing it in place with a bandage from her injury kit.
There wasn't much time, but she had to at least stop the bleeding from the deep cuts across Merrill's body; so she applied the poultice to them as well.
The elf still didn't wake and Hawke thought about just carrying her over her shoulders, but first she needed some clothes for her.
The pieces that were left of Merrill's tunic were dirty and in tatters. Looking at the piece of clothing and the state of her lover's body, Hawke felt the need to scream again and it took a lot of effort to reign herself in.
Rage and blind fury wouldn't help her here.
Kirkwall's champion checked the other two templars.
The one whose throat had been crushed by her shield was dead, probably suffocated on his own blood. He was old with a full beard and not in that good a shape.
The other one was just passed out, although a small trickle of blood from his ears hinted at a possibly serious head injury.
He was relatively small for a human and thin, his clothes would probably fit Merrill well enough for a short time.
Hawke took his weapons and threw them to the other side of the room, then she quickly robbed him of his armour, his tunic and his breeches.
The templar moaned a bit, while she undressed him, but didn't wake up.
Returning to Merrill, she quickly dressed the mage in the man's breeches and tunic.
She acted as careful and gentle as possible in the understandable hurry she needed to employ.
Still, she couldn't help causing Merrill some pain as the elven girl winced quietly one or two times.
Hawke actually was a bit happy about this, at least she was alive enough to feel the pain.
When she was finished, she began to gently tap Merrill's cheek with her hand, speaking softly to her.
"Merrill? Please wake up, honey. I'm taking you out of here, but I need you to be conscious at least for a while."
After some time Merrill did stir a little and Hawke gently cupped her face with both hands.
"Merrill? Merrill, my love?"
"M-ma vhenan?"
A weak, almost toneless whisper, but Merrill's big, emerald eyes opened. Well at least the left eye opened, the right was still almost swollen shut.
"Merrill."
The champion whispered and unbelievably gently she kissed Merrill's parched and swollen lips. Tears flowed freely from her eyes.
The elf's lips returned the kiss eagerly and she cried as well.
As always, her saviour had arrived. She knew deep in her heart, that Hawke would always be there for her and only death could pry them apart.
She send a short prayer to Mythal and Elgarn'nan, thanking them for the strength to survive until Hawke arrived and to Falon'Din for not answering her plea for a painless death.
"Y-you c-came, H-hawke."
"Of course, Merrill."
Hawke almost choked on her words, so moved was she to hear the voice of her beloved again.
"I'm so, so sorry that I took this long. I came here as soon as possible. I..."
"Shh, ma vhenan. I know. You need not apologize."
Merrill gasped from a sting of pain and continued.
"J-just get m-me o-out of h-here, p-lease. I c-can't..."
"Alright, Merril."
Hawke opened a pouch fastened to her belt and pulled a small bottle, filled with a strange orange liquid, out of it.
"But first you'll have to drink this. It is a mixture of water, stamina- and elfroot potion in about equal parts. Bethany created it. It will give you some strength and not put too much pressure on your system."
When she saw Merrill make a face, she continued.
"Don't worry, Beth' added lots of honey to it, so it's not bitter. It actually tastes quite nice."
She propped Merrill up on her right arm and held the open bottle with her left to the elf's mouth. Merrill tentatively took a sip and when she found the taste to her liking she downed the rest of the drink. The effect was almost instantly, colour returned to Merrill's cheeks and a bit of fire to her eyes.
"So you tasted my medicine? That's not nice, if it was mine I mean."
She sounded as naïve as when she first arrived in Kirkwall but a glimmer of joy in her eyes revealed she was just teasing her champion.
Hawke laughed softly.
"Wow! I have to tell Beth' how good this stuff works, you have enough energy to make fun of me."
Merrill laughed as well, but the laughing quickly turned into a coughing fit and she winced in pain.
Hawke's fear rose again. She gently held the elf until the coughing subsided, speaking soothing words to her. With a handkerchief she cleaned her lover's face from the worst filth and grime.
"Take it easy Merrill. Relax as good as you can until we start to move."
Out of the same pouch, she had stored the potion, she pulled out a small pastry and a bar of honey-covered nuts, two of Merrill's favourite snacks.
Merrill smiled full of joy and thanks as the champion handed the treats to her.
"Don't eat to hastily, you are very weak. This will give you much needed nourishment, but don't eat more than you can handle."
Merrill nodded and she felt wrapped in Hawke's kindness and love, like in a warm blanket.
A noise made Hawke aware of the surviving guard waking up.
Merrill flinched in fear at the noise and Hawke instantly felt her anger rise again. She was finding it harder and harder to keep her temper in check, after what the templars had done to her love.
She jumped to her feet and in two long strides she was at the templar's side, sword already in hand.
X
Ulfwin awoke with a terrible pain in his head. His whole face felt as if it was smashed flat.
He remembered the woman, the expression of disbelief and fury on her face and then the triangle of the shield zooming in on his head, hitting it with terrible force and sending him backwards against the wall.
Then he had lost his senses.
Awake now, the first thing he saw was the elven mage in the arms of the female officer. Then he realized he was nude up to his underpants and groaned.
Too late he realized this made the women aware of his presence and the next thing he knew, the human's sword was at his throat.
Shaking with fear he gazed at her and for the first time he realized she was very beautiful. Her green eyes burned with anger and passion; her red hair shone even in the dim light in this chamber.
He forgot about her beauty, when he saw the barely controlled rage in her face. Her whole body was shaking with anger.
"I... I never touched her. I... I was really... I felt sorry for her, but there was no way t-to help her."
"Sure. Sure! You couldn't help her, so you just watched as this... animal, this filth, tore into her. Yes! Alright! You are perfectly innocent."
"I-I am. I really am. I only... We can't do anything anymore.
B-before Kirkwall, we could be lenient, we could treat the mages like human... uh like normal beings, b-but since then... I have no choice. If I act too friendly I'll be put under surveillance. A lot of us have been thrown into the prisons ourselves, there have been death sentences for templars who allegedly conspired with mages."
For a moment it seemed as if the woman hesitated and Ulfwin dared to hope.
Then her jaw tightened and she replied.
"You know... before all of this with Meredith and Orsino... before two of my closest friends betrayed me. Before I was driven from the town I sacrificed friends and family, blood and tears, for.
Before all that, I'd have been the first to give you a second chance.
But you don't deserve it. You watched as the woman I love more than my own live was tortured, hurt, almost broken.
You didn't help her and you said yourself, you never helped any of the other victims."
She paused for a moment, then continued with more conviction.
"No. I will not spare any of you until your order gives in and listens to the chantry again and stops killing and pursuing mages...
I will not kill you.. even after everything that happened, I cannot kill you.
But I can make sure you are not longer capable of fighting for your order."
She grabbed her sword with both hands and before he could react, she brought it down on his right arm.
She chopped of his hand. Ulfwin screamed and curled up into a ball, clutching his bleeding arm to his chest.
Without a moment of hesitation, Hawke knelt beside the templar and drew her knife. Two deep, quick cuts in the back of the man's knees, destroying muscles and tendons.
This man would never run after a fleeing mage again, he would never march in a fighting force again.
Ulfwin's screams grew louder and he rocked his body back and forth.
Hawke moved closer to his ears.
"The funny thing is, Templar, if there was a mage around who was well enough to cast a complicated healing spell, both your hands and the full use of your legs might be saved, but you templars made that impossible."
The man just continued to sob and scream.
One blow to his temple with the hilt of the sword knocked him out.
She ripped pieces from the dead guard's coat and roughly bandaged the man's wounds.
When she returned to Merrill, the mage watched her with wide, doe eyes.
"A-are you alright, L-lorelei?"
Hawke looked away for a moment, when she returned Merrill's gaze she looked guilty.
"Y-yes. I'm sorry, my love. Y-you shouldn't have to see me doing things like this. I'm just so angry... ever since Anders... Fenris... Orsino.
Betrayed. By all of them. "
She sighed.
"In hindsight it seems like everything connected to Kirkwall has been one betrayal after another."
Merrill searched for an answer, the pain in Hawke's eyes was two-fold.
The champion felt pain because of her- Merril's, torment and she still felt the pain over how her life in Kirkwall had ended.
"Wait here for a moment, love. I'm going to let the other prisoners out of their cells, to keep the guards occupied and then I'll get you."
"Hawke, wait..."
But the champion didn't listen.
She searched Maeglins body for the keys and then, having found it, she left the room.
Merrill rested on Hawke's coat and tried to gather as much energy as she could from the soil beneath her, to replenish her health and strength.
The land was tainted by the dark deeds the templars performed here, but her keeper skills still helped a lot.
Hawke returned after a short time and was pleasantly surprised to find Merrill able to stand on her feet, albeit a bit wobbly.
She hurried to her lover's side and quickly supported her with her arms.
After Merrill explained what she had done, the champion asked.
"Do you think you can walk a few hundred meters, darling? In a thicket outside the fortress, Beth' is waiting with Raider. Do you think you can manage that far or should I carry you?"
Her voice was full of concern. Merrill breathed calmly and as deep as her wounds allowed.
"Let's see how far I can walk on my own, Hawke. If I'm not strong enough, you can always carry me then."
Hawke nodded and her arms wrapped themselves, protective and supportive around her elven lover as they started to walk.
X
A few hours later, they were in a closed carriage, Merrill resting on a makeshift bedstead, Raider the Mabari at her feet and her love by her side.
Bethany had reluctantly agreed to control the carriage for the time being. They were on their way to the next sea harbour.
After they had managed to escape the templars clutches one more time, they had decided it was finally time to leave the Free Marches" for good.
For now they would set sail to Ferelden, but the Hawke sisters were relatively sure, it would only be a way-point before a farther destination.
Hawke carefully and gently cleaned the elven mage's body and wounds with pieces of soft cloth, treating the wounds with poultices and bandaging them.
Every movement, every tender touch conveyed the depth of her love for the other woman.
Bethany had cast a healing spell to deal with the worst wounds, but there was still plenty left.
Under Hawke's gentle administrations, Merrill felt the pain dull and her body relaxed for the first time in a week.
The champion dumped the last bloodstained cloth into the bucket with warm water and treated the last bruise on Merrill's cheek.
Her hand rested there for a while, gently cupping her lover's face.
Hawke's right hand held Merrill's as if she never ever planned to let go of her.
She leaned in and pressed a kiss on the elf's lips. Merrill eagerly returned it and even opened her mouth to welcome Hawke's tongue.
The kiss grew deeper until Hawke restrained herself.
She was breathing heavily and the bliss on Merrill's face mixed with pain from the exertion.
"It seems I can't trust myself with you, my little wild flower. I'll have to keep myself in check."
Merrill nodded and smiled weakly.
"But you can at least lay beside me and hold me, can't you?"
She asked with large, pleading eyes.
A nod and a happy smile was the only answer.
Hawke squeezed herself onto the bunk beside her love and gently held her.
"I love you, Merril."
The elf nodded, a blissful smile on her face.
"I love Hawke."
She replied and drifted into the first peaceful sleep since her capture.
X
X
X
X
A.N:
Finally finished, please write and review, even if you drop just one line, it will help fuel my energy for more stories.
And to all Fenris fans, I don't hate the guy, but this Hawke was betrayed by him and so she doesn't like him anymore.
Anders is a whole different story. The DA II Anders is a murderous arse.