Chapter Twenty-Nine : Assassin


They dashed pell-mell into the darkness, down the twisted alleys and wooden platforms which served as pathways between the buildings on this side of Redcliffe. On the shoreline, the houses hovered, built up on spindly stilts. From Lake Calenhad, they looked like black gulls' legs standing on the pebbled beach. When high tide came, the filmy brown waters rolled under the huts. The feet of the piers were peppered with mussels, as if a hundred shiny black eyes were clumped together between the red tufts of spindleweed.

Elissa was a flash, merely a glimpse of white blouse ahead of him, darting around the sharp corners and obstacles— fish drying racks, barrels, nets hung for mending, old crates— with breathless ease. She was a natural born sprinter, and if she'd really been trying to elude him, she'd be gone. Alistair caught up to her behind the abandoned general store, skidding to a halt in his heavy boots. She stood still as a statue.

"Hear that?" she asked. The moon reflected some light off the fabric of her linen shirt, but it was still quite dark, and her face was wreathed in shadows.

"No," he answered honestly, pressing his right hand against his ribs. He could only hear his own blood pumping in his ears, and the sound of his loud breaths sucking in his lungs. Still, he was not nearly as winded as he would have been two months ago. His stamina must have been increasing, from all the marching and killing things and running for his life. In whichever order you liked.

Lissa nodded. "Exactly." She obliged his heavy breathing by carrying on: "I needed to see if anyone would give chase. Our opponents are obscured."

He tapped his foot on the old wooden planks beneath them, understanding. The warped boards creaked under the shift in his weight. "We went where we could hear them. Where nobody could sneak up on us."

She looked doubtfully off the edge of the rail and down to the beach. "Perhaps they still could, if they scaled the pillar below us. But I find that unlikely. I doubled back."

"I noticed," he said with a beleaguered grin. "I thought we were going to chase them."

"I still intend to." Lissa wiped sweat away from where it beaded on her temple. The absent-minded gesture left streak of crimson on her face. The palm of her hand and all her fingers were sticky with fresh blood. "The first move was defensive. I'd rather not alert the guard if we can manage it." She grimaced when she noticed her hand, and yanked her yellow scarf from its place about her throat to clean up. "Such green lads. The regulars were all killed in the fighting."

"We didn't encounter the patrol. If we know the route, so might they," he observed.

"I had that thought. We might be on the lookout for a dead guardsman, I'm afraid. Someone whose body might be concealed behind a convenient barrel."

"He could still be alive."

"That would be rather sloppy." She regarded him solemnly. "If we sound the alarm we might save the man. But we will lose our opportunity."

"Won't they be gone by now, whoever it is?"

"Death is, after all, a message, and messages are meant to be received," she answered flatly. Her eyes shifted up and to the left as she recalled the line from memory.

"I didn't think you were the kind of person who quoted things. What's that from then?"

"A book. Of Granting Death, I think it was called. I borrowed it off of Nathaniel when we were— you know— and I kept it for a long sea voyage. I never did give it back. He went to Starkhaven, and I to Val Royeaux."

"Sounds like a very dreary book," he said, cupping her face. He rubbed the smear of blood on her cheek away with his thumb.

"It was. Quite ghastly, unsuitable for a lady."

"Which means you read it twice."

"Oh, at least. I wonder why I'm thinking of it now. There was something… I think it went, 'It is paramount that the arrival remain secret, not the result. They know what may come, but never when—until the answer is "now" and there is naught they can do but receive.'" She shook her head. "They will not go. The surprise is spoiled, but they will have to rally before we do. The two of us, alone, unaided— that might not happen again after tonight."

Alistair hooked his thumb in his belt, where the scabbard usually rested on his hip. "I've just remembered I don't have my sword. I'd forgotten I was working in the hospital today with Marla. It gets in the way." He swallowed, suddenly feeling naked, like he was having one of those dreams with no breaches.

The rogue reached up over her shoulder and pulled out one of her paired daggers. "Here, take this," she offered. She gave him one of those brilliant, twisted smiles which made his stomach feel hot. "Consider it a loan." She practically thrust it into his hand. "I know what it's like to be unarmed in a crisis."

"You're still thinking of the sword you lost at Ostagar?"

"What can I say?" she shrugged, uneasy. "I fled Highever barefoot you know, in my dressing gown, with only my great-grandfather's sword in my hand. It wasn't the best sword, or the most expensive, but... It's the only thing I had of home." She shook her head. "Stupid sentiment. I don't miss the sword. It's all the rest."

Alistair took her dagger, trying the weight in his hand. It was heavier than it looked, and the balance was quite different than what he was accustomed to. The dagger was small, flexible, and felt strange in a hand more used to a larger sword. It was a thrusting weapon, a stabbing weapon, an offensive weapon for close quarters combat, though he had seen her throw it with deadly accuracy. In her hands, it was an instrument of death. He felt clumsy just holding it. Oddly intimate, like he was holding a piece of her body. It was still warm from her body heat. "I shouldn't. Won't it put you at a disadvantage, if you don't have both?"

"It would be much worse for me if I felt I needed to protect you. Can you manage with it?"

He gave an experimental jab in the air. "Yes," he decided. "Do you have a plan?"

She chuckled grimly. "Half of one. Tell me, was Morrigan awake when you left her?"


A light shimmer of frost licked across the warm earth, forming and melting as soon as it materialized. In the air, clumps of snowflakes blurred the world, falling like a pale curtain over the village. An unnatural summer snowstorm, courtesy of one bedbound apostate.

Neither of them was wearing any sort of armor. Elissa had her linen shirt and deerskin trousers, and Alistair had his Warden breeches and the woolen shirt he still mentally assigned to Carver Hawke. Both were streaked in splashes of blood.

Elissa walked very softly, breathing lightly, and moving slowly. Cat-like and coiled to pounce. Flakes collected white in her red hair and dripped down the back of her bare neck. Alistair tried to mimic the way she moved, hunting in the night for a very dangerous sort of prey. She held fast to his hand, warm flesh pressed against warm flesh. So tight he could nearly count every callus on the creases of her fingers. They were meant to be bait, but they were not about to make it easy.

Two squeezes, hard, sharp. Somewhere, someone was following them. He pictured what he had not seen— an invisible shape, twisting the lines of the snow. He clutched back once, feeling the rise of tense anticipation. Thrice now they had grappled with these strange enemies, all elves dressed like ordinary peasants, and thrice they had killed them before any could be interrogated. Lissa was getting frustrated.

There had only been a moment to brief their friends. Sten was to maintain the security of Morrigan's tent at all costs. The witch, delighted to have action again after so much recuperation, was to cast a blizzard until her mana ran dry. With careful modulation of her magic, and several vials of lyrium, Morrigan had managed to keep the storm going constantly for the better part of an hour. It was losing its density and temperature, though, and it was clear that the spell was waning.

A ghost of motion in the frost. Footsteps splashed in fresh mud, revealing the camouflaged predator.

"I see you," Elissa called out, breaking the silence. She contrived to speak in an affected voice, friendly and calm. It set Alistair's nerves on edge. It was the sort of voice she used before killing bandits. "Why don't you take off your mask and face me properly?"

A laugh in the shadows. "You are more clever than the stories give credit, Warden. No one told me you were trained in the art. But I think we both know that your mage is getting tired." It was a strange accent, lilting and lyrical and distinctly Antivan. "And your friend is not so fast and clever with a blade as you or I."

"Hey!" Alistair grumbled. "That's not very nice." He held the dagger in his right hand even tighter, eyes darting from shadow to shadow. Where was the voice? He had to be very close.

"If this is about the bounty on Grey Wardens, I'm sure we could work something out." Another strangely jovial laugh. Lissa pivoted toward the sound, unconsciously dragging Alistair into a place behind her. Her free hand crept up his arm, pressing him back. "Not the bounty then. I didn't think so. Have you come to answer my advertisement for a Crow? No, didn't think so either. How much is the going rate these days?"

"A Rendon Howe paid the purse," offered the bodiless voice. "If it helps, it was quite handsome. You can die knowing you were valuable."

"I imagine Rendon keeps an account with your master," Lissa said tightly, and her smile was a little more like a sneer. "Would you believe he had a hand in the particulars of my training?"

Step. Pivot. He was circling them. Soft footsteps in the snow.

"What an interesting coincidence."

"Not really. He was my father's spymaster, when such a thing was necessary. Da liked to keep his hands clean." She sniffed.

"But you are much more hands on. And much more beautiful than Howe."

"I am," she agreed. "I've killed three of your people tonight. Must it be four?"

"You can try to bargain. People usually do," said the amused stranger.

Alistair felt a strange tickle on the back of his neck. It took him a moment to realize that the sensation was warm breath. Then something hot, a pain in his lower back. It reminded him of holding his fingers too close to the flame of a candle. Quick, burning pain. He jerked, gasping, and turned toward the source.

At the sound Lissa whirled, launching herself bodily into the empty air. But it wasn't empty air at all. It was a strange elf, dressed in immaculate black.

She landed a blow on his unveiled face. It was a hard hit, but the elf rolled his head back with the blow, relaxing his neck muscles to accept her momentum. Her second strike bowled them both to the ground. They rolled in the muddy earth, equally matched for each other, a figure in black and a figure in white. He punched out at her bad shoulder. She groaned. Sensing the weakness the elf grabbed and pulled from the elbow. With a scream her left arm went lifeless, dislocated, and she dropped her dagger. A second strike split her mouth open.

Alistair felt his legs go cold.

She spat blood in the elf's handsome face, eyes blazing with anger. The Warden grappled with her thighs and rolled sharply, pinning him heavily at his chest. In the chaos she'd found the knife in her boot. He lurched to block it but she raked it across his forearm, slicing through the cloth armor. The elf swore in his native tongue in alarm and she brought the weight of the blade down against his throat. A fine line of red trickled under her hands, waiting for the pressure that would open the artery.

"Lissa!" Alistair croaked. His mouth tasted of ash.

She looked down, studying the stranger. "You should hear my offer," Lissa suggested, holding very still, so still that snow dusted her eyelashes. Her enemy's dagger was pointed firmly against her ribs; her injured arm swung limp and useless on that side. A standoff.

His big eyes widened. "You wish to negotiate?" asked the man, licking his lips. The assassin had a facial tattoo, but it didn't appear to be Dalish. His hood was ornamented with a sort of silvery beak. He had a broad, stocky chest under her tense thighs, suggesting powerful muscles concealed by his wiry frame. "How— how unexpected. You should know first that my blade is poisoned."

"How poisoned?"

"Fast paralysis, slow death."

'Why can't I move?' Alistair thought.

"Effective." It was nearly a compliment. "You could kill me," she admitted, voice like ice. "I might kill you. But Alistair will kill you, before you can pry my corpse off your belly."

"Maker's sake, Lissa," Alistair heard himself babbling.

"The junior Warden?" he asked, calculating. "I might take my chances. He looks the nervous type."

"You would be mistaken. He's a templar."

"I get the feeling that some of the details were left out of this assignment," complained the Antivan. "How do I know you would not kill me the moment I release you?"

"That would be a waste."

"Lis..."

"A sound argument, if I ever heard one. I am Zevran. Zev to my friends. I don't suppose you might move your blade, so I can swallow?"

"No."

"Fair enough." The gash on his arm was bleeding heavily, spilling onto the grass. His brown skin was beginning take on a shade of gray.

She locked eyes with him. "I've recently come into a particular sort of need."

"The sort of need for which one hires a Crow?"

"Quite. I'm looking for an expert on foreign poisons."

"That is a very peculiar need for a Grey Warden."

"You'd better sing for your supper, Zevran. Tell me what you know."

"I know eleven varieties of poisons, and their unique antidotes. And four more which cannot be cured by any means. I also know the Guildmasters feel that only a united Ferelden can stop this Blight. They believe your Hero of the River Dane to be the best leader."

"Hmm. I don't much care if Antiva opposes the civil war. Kill me and make a martyr. The war will come regardless."

"You're lying, my dear. I know of the meeting at Oswin."

She lowered her knife from his throat. A red ribbon was left on his skin. "You've been reading my correspondence." She looked thoughtful, then slid off of his chest with a hiss. Now that the adrenaline began to fade, both found themselves too injured to carry on with their scuffle.

Zevran scrabbled into a seated position, clutching his wound against his stomach as he tried to staunch the flow of blood. "I have been here a week. No one notices a few more elves. Your Leliana should screen her refugees more carefully. My intention was to ambush you quietly, on the road, but my friends grew impatient."

"You should screen your friends more carefully."

"That is good advice." He grinned. "I met this Loghain in your capital. Rather taciturn fellow. But his friend, Rendon Howe, he likes to talk. I can be very sympathetic, very nice to talk to. He forgets that I am not loyal to him. I was contracted to perform a service. I was not paid for my silence."

"Is that so?" she said doubtfully.

"Howe spoke loudly and often about his hatred for the Couslands. Your survival challenges his claim on your family lands. He plans on using a son of the family to legitimize his coup. I believe that he keeps this man in a prison." He read something on her face. "This means something to you? I do not have a name. Howe called him 'that bastard'. There is more like that, if it is useful."

"How much for the rest of what you know?"

Zevran hesitated. "Here's the thing— if I do not slay both Wardens, my life is forfeit to the Crows. They will kill me if I return home. You, or your lovely Alistair, or your other very dangerous friends will certainly kill me if I move against you again."

"Lissa?" mouthed Alistair. Their voices sounded strange, like he was listening from under the lake. He could not feel his legs. 'I think I'm poisoned. Yes, definitely poisoned. What do I do? She doesn't seem to hear me. Maker, the flames, the ice...'

"I like living, and you are a capable woman who can think of many uses for a Crow, I think. So, let me serve you instead."

"How can we know you will not turn on us?"

"You cannot, as such, this is true. But perhaps I do not want to be a Crow any longer. I wasn't given much of a choice. The Crows bought me young. I was a bargain, too, or so I'm led to believe."

This gave her pause. "Are you a slave?"

"They would not see it as such. A Crow lives very comfortably— all his vices attended to, be they wine, women, men, whatever you happen to fancy. Not at all like Tevinter slaves. And I enjoy the work, don't get me wrong. But it's not the kind of business where one lives to a comfortable old age. The severance package is garbage."

"Grey Wardens aren't in the habit of dying in their beds, either," she said. "Or so I'm told."

"Then perhaps I will die anyway, but I will take probable death over certain death any day. You seem like the kind of people who take that kind of chance." Zevran paused for a moment, looking very serious for the first time. "I think we should speak more. But not in such a compromising way. Time is wasting away for your friend."

"What?" She jerked her head. "Alistair?"

He was falling, sinking down onto his knees in the soft earth. "My back..." he muttered inaudibly. "...fire..." His slack hands settled limply in his lap. Sweat poured off of him, soaking through his shirt, like he was in the grip of a terrible fever.

"What have you done?" She was up and moving toward him. "WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY?!" she screamed.

"For insurance," Zevran answered, confused. It was obvious to him. He hopped to his feet and wobbled, woozy from blood loss. "We were negotiating, no? I have the cure, of course."

"His life was NEVER part of our deal!" she snarled. Then she was on her knees before him, clutching his face. "Alistair, can you hear me? Maker's breath, he's so pale. —Now, Zevran, not later, not when you please, NOW— Andraste help me, I will have you drawn and quartered for regicide!"

"Regicide?" sputtered Zevran, truly surprised for the first time. "No one said anything about kingslaying. I was not paid nearly enough for that... well actually, I was not paid at all, but still—"

Her face loomed large in his vision, white as a sheet. Her eyes glistened wetly and her nose was red from crying. Her split lip was still oozing blood. "Sweetheart, say something. Please. I'm sorry. I should have— Tunnel vision, remember, you always say I get..." There was a weight on his chest, snuffing out his breath. She seemed to grow darker around the edges, and then he felt himself falling from a great height into a bottomless abyss. "...Alistair...?"