"Of course there is no us and them but them they do not think the same,
They never stepped a spiritual path, they paint their faces so differently from us,
And if you listen closely, this war it never stops."
-Gogol Bordello, Illumination.
"So, a tide of refugees floods through Mezzano's gates and you're still going south?" Elaria leaned against the gates of the stable, peering at the dwarves with incredulous eyes.
"Aye," Bartrand raised his voice over the carthorses snorts, scolding it to silence with a stare. "Nothing stops commerce lassie, not even talk of war."
"You've hired mercenaries?" Elaria's tone betrayed how little she thought of the decision.
"Red, your concern for us is truly sweet but quit whilst you're ahead. Once Bartrand's got his mind set he's as immovable as a mule," Varric heaved another trunk, the weight straining his face and lowering the cart by an inch or more. The blinkered gelding snorted its disapproval.
"Far be it from me to hold back the greed of the dwarves," Elaria shrugged. "But I really would suggest waiting..."
"We've waited for weeks," Bartrand snapped. "I'm sick of this piss-pot of a country. The people are awful. The foods awful. The trades awful..."
"I've heard that war is opportunity..."
"Piss on your opportunity," Bartrand, thankfully, only spat. "I'd rather keep my brains intact."
"So you're leaving the safety of Mezzano to journey through a land controlled by gangs of Dalish, with men who are as like to slit your throats as to slit your enemy's?" Elaria smiled.
"Oh aye," Bartrand met her grin with one of his own. "A death on the road, is better than a death behind walls, defending some ungrateful piss ants life."
"You're obsessed with urination, aren't you?"
"Ah, begone with you," Bartrand waved a fist at her.
"Well, before you journey into certain death there is the small matter of my pay," Elaria held out her palm. "I'd hate to have to take it from your corpse."
Bartrand tugged on the horse's reins and the beast trumpeted, lowering its great head to snuffle at his beard. The dwarf stumbled backwards, boots slipping in the dung and hay, spitting curses. Elaria met Varric's gaze, biting her bottom lip over her laughter.
"Here, catch," Varric unhooked a velvet pouch from his waist. It clinked with the unmistakable sound of coin hitting coin as it soared through the air. Elaria grasped it one-handed, smiling as she tested its weight.
"You will not take it remiss if I check," she jingled the pouch by its ribbon.
"I'd consider it impolite if you didn't," Varric sketched the slightest of bows as Bartand spluttered and stumbled to his feet.
Gold winked out of the velvet as she tilted the pouch towards the sunlight. Enough to keep a certain someone sated for at least a week.
"Well it's been good knowing you both," she said, only half lying. "Perhaps one day our paths will cross again. Though I imagine you'll be crows feed and I'll be burying what's left of you."
"We're hardier than we look," Varric's smile split his face. "Take care of Grumpy, eh Red? He's a good one, if not a little muddled in his mind."
Not for the first time Elaria wondered what had passed between him and Zevran. The dwarf's eyes twinkled with much more knowledge than they should.
"I wish you'd reconsider," she muttered. "I could get you an escort back to the city, you could take ship to the Free Marches..."
"Ah, don't go all soft on me, Red," Varric waved away her concerns, clapping his scowling brother on the shoulder. "We've survived worse."
Elissa had begun the dark work of examining her wounds, hunched over on her pallet; not caring how crowded the room. Coils of stained bandages fell to her quick fingers. As she wiggled the remnants of her left foot a vein throbbed in her neck; the only sign of discomfort. There was something hypnotic in watching her prod and poke, about the blankness of her face as she did it, as though being partially crippled was a merely another of life's obstacles. Elaria wasn't the only one watching.
Her approach was masked by Ichiro's high voice, deeply embedded in argument with the good-natured Templar. Despite the distraction Zevran should have heard her footfalls, but his eyes were trained on the Cousland woman. Elaria could hardly blame him. There was an intense beauty in Elissa, like a well-cut diamond, hard and cold, only sharpened by her feverous eyes and sunken cheeks.
"Like what you see, huh?" Elaria shielded her words with whisper under Ichiro's noisy demands.
"Her brother's the same," Zevran's arched his back to look at her, a grin wrinkling his cheek. "But there is a better view now."
She waved away his flattery with a smirk. "I wish I could trust her half as much as Fergus," the pouch sighed softly in her hands.
"You can trust her, as long as we're richer than our enemies," Zevran shrugged.
"Let's hope the Crows haven't beggared me before you get back to the city."
She skirted around the table where Ichiro was beetroot red, jabbing at his cards, hissing curses like a soldier. Quentin stared at his lap in response, as speechless as a gutted fish.
Elissa's wide, expressionless eyes regarded her, up and down, before settling on the pouch in her hand. "My first payment," she sighed, tips of her fingers steepleing together. "How marvellous."
Elaria let the pouch slump onto the bed with not a little bad feeling. Perhaps it was simply her hand being forced. She hated being steered towards any action, especially by someone so recently her enemy.
"You'll be leaving on the morrow," Elaria leant in a little closer so her words were not mistaken over the racket. "Do not think this means I've forgotten you."
Elissa's hand flew to her chest, fingers fluttering over her heart. "You couldn't forget me. And if you do just think of that scar up your pretty elven neck."
It did burn, especially as the metal chaffed the bandages. The collar was hardly Orlesian silverwork, it sat tight and uncomfortable at the best of times and the dressing only made it worse.
Elaria sighed. Though every instinct told her to recoil, to leave this manipulative murderess to her wounds and her words, Elaria braced herself and sat on the bed.
Elissa, it seemed, did not expect this rather familiar action and for once had no quip, inane or accurate. Elaria had mulled over her action, practiced her words over and over, but try as she might she had no plan, no way to make the woman answer what she wouldn't tell. But she threw the dice anyway, the need to know aching in her mind.
"Alistair...?" she gave the woman a quick glance, her pride clenching around the words. "Is he...alright?"
Elissa could not have surprised her more. The hard lines of her face softened in a way that Elaria didn't think they could. She pulled her knees up to her chest and sighed. "I like him, you know."
Their silence was filled with Ichiro's huffs and sighs as his rage abated. Elaria had no idea how to respond. She assumed Elissa incapable of such a task as liking but truly, it shone from her face in a way that the pain from her feet had not. She decided to be honest. "You...you like Alistair?"
"Oh yes," Elissa nodded empathically, her black curls glinting blue in the sunlight. "Do you find it objectionable?"
"I feel like the rain just told me it likes the sun," Elaria muttered shaking her head. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Isn't that what girls do?" Elissa raised her chin in defiance. "Talk about boys they like?"
It was like stripping back layers of an onion to find a carrot inside. What was she supposed to say to that? Sorry, you madwoman. But kidnap and torture are not the best foundations of a friendship.
From across the room Zevran watched them with a smirk.
When we know the history of our enemies we often find a story that breaks the resolve to fight. Such was it with the man she was sure she loved, why should it be different with her?
"Alistair is a good man," she said slowly, knowing good to be a feeble description. "I'd have thought you'd prefer someone more...more like yourself."
"Oh? Do you think me wicked?" Elissa's lips twitched, and she sighed heavily, her unusually affectionate face inclining to her feet. "I lied to you."
When? Formed in Elaria's mouth but she stopped herself. Confession came easier when not prompted and Elissa could have lied about a thousand niggling details, any one of which could mean death. She screwed her lips together.
"Alistair didn't pay me," Elissa's craned close enough that her breath soured Elaria's nostrils. "I came because I was trailing a man...a man who turned up in Denerim...a man I think you know."
"Who?" Elaria couldn't stop herself this time, staring into those blank sapphire eyes, seeking answers but not sure she wanted to know.
"Claudio Valisti."
Finding Guido proved to be a challenge. She scoured the whorehouse, opening doors with potions and medicines that would have remained closed to her pounding fist. She expected to find the Crow drowning his sorrows in women and wine but he was not to be seen among the skirts of the whores or propping up the bar in the common room.
She walked the streets, her shadow huddled close in the noontime sun. Armed with her daggers but otherwise alone. Pockets of disquiet had formed in the winding alleys of Mezzano, as survivors of Dalish ambushes filed into the safety of the walls. Penniless and starving they stalked the streets, some more violent in their begging than others. No doubt they'd paid a heavy price for their lives and an even heavier price to be surrounded by stone and guardsmen. Every day there were more at the gates and every day the rumours trickled darker.
As she turned into the Main Square the crowds only thickened, taking shelter from the noon under the sprayed branches of a giant oak. She squinted, looking for jet black hair and pale skin and finding not a trace.
"Please, noble lady, just a penny. Our farm was burnt down, my son..."
"We were ambushed on the road. Didn't see the blighters coming. Took everything they did..."
"You look like you've a silver to spare, miss. Help 'em less fortunate, eh?"
Cries and pleading followed on her heels and guilt weighed heavy in her chest as she passed them by. Outstretched hands grasped for the air behind her, grubby, desperate faces, eyeing her with contempt or distress. Perhaps had she been raised in an Alienage she may have found some bitter triumph at seeing humankind brought so low, but the Circle stamped out such prejudices young and Elaria saw only a mass of suffering.
Sadly, such opinion found little hold in starving minds. Blame, vengeance, justice, these were the bread and butter of the victim. Elaria knew all too well.
"Oi, elf, stop where you are," a slurred voice came from behind as she was about to cut down an alleyway.
It never failed to agitate her that even when starving people found the coin to drink. He swayed and staggered, his stubbled face blackened with road dust and sleeping rough, his thatch of hair a wild mess of grease and hay. The knife in his hand was rusted, a tool for chopping vegetables not piercing hearts, especially not hearts encased in thick boiled leathers.
The hustle and bustle of the streets held its breath. Fearful eyes turning to her and her assailant, more curious than hostile. Most looked as though they lacked the strength for hostility.
"Give me your purse and I'll let you live," he lurched towards her, jabbing the knife as though to show her his capability.
Lothering spun in her head. The first time she'd killed a man. They'd given her no choice, wanting the reward on her head for their next meal. Not professional killers though. The slaughter had left her weak, knee's knocking together not able to stomach food, weak. But the lessons it had taught her made her strong. We are none of us innocent. Zevran's words.
"Are you even listening, elf? I'm going to gut you or you're gonna give me your coin," the man's voice snapped at her, pulling her to the present with another jab-jab of his rusty dagger.
"It's not as easy as you think," Elaria said softly, so only he could hear. "Killing a man..."
"Shut up," he spat through clenched teeth, cords in his neck stark against grizzled skin, the knife wavering in his bear paw of a grip.
Elaria stepped forwards. It was hardly a gamble, she could have disarmed the poor bastard several times but hoped not to need violence. Though their audience looked meek they watched intently and amongst the tired faces were pockets of jealousy, anger, desperation. "You don't look like a killer to me, friend. Were you a fisherman, perhaps? Or a farmer..."
"That's...that's none of your business!" His lips trembled though, and his foot slid backwards.
"Were you attacked on the road? Dalish, I imagine..."
"Aye and so what?" the man spat as though to show her what he thought of her deductions, but he'd lowered his blade clutching hand.
"I am a Crow, my friend."
It took three blinks of an eye for the man's face to fall from anger to fear. The legend of the Crow's still held some conviction, at least. He lowered the point of his knife entirely.
"I...I...I," he stammered.
Elaria held up her head in the universally recognised symbol of peace, smiling in a benign but forgiving manner. His shoulders slumped. Poor bastard. She stepped forward, thinking to clap him on shoulder when a shadow itched at her peripherals.
Guido's face loomed like vengeful shadow. A glint flashed in the sunlight. A cry of outrage opened her mouth but never pierced the air. She barely had time to close her eyes as a hot spray drenched her.
A thud. A horrible sinking of her stomach. She opened her eyes and blood dripped from her lashes.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Guido knelt wiping the dragonbone blade of The Roses Thorn on the man's faded green breeches as the life still gurgled out of him. He glanced up at her, smile splitting his face.
"Saved your life," he stood, pride at his work shining from every pore.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The dirt covered square drank thirstily. Elaria stared at eyes that seconds before had regarded her with fear, a few minutes earlier with rage, and now looked at her blankly. Dead. Not guilty of anything but poverty. Dead. Best choose your side of the fence, Hero.
Men were getting to their feet around them, faces she'd deemed too weak for hostility screwed up in anger. She took a breath. The air tasted of blood.
"Are you alright?" Guido, his back to the crowd, laughter on his lips.
They may not have had the best weapons, but they were grabbing what they could. Lengths of steel, pitchforks and hoes. When the first stone whizzed over their heads Guido turned to shout...
Elaria had no time to think. Instinct took over. She grabbed Guido's arm, slipping across the bloodied floor as she dived into the alley.
Shouts roared off the high brick walls. Her boots slapped against cobblestones, then sprayed in dirt. Faces of bystanders, the thousand colours of the market stalls, the ominous, looming structures of the townhouses all blurred by the whip of speed. Guido was tugging her now, his long legs faster, his grip slippery with blood and sweat.
He yanked her into an alley and Elaria realised they were thoroughly lost. The buildings seemed taller here, elegant columns carved into facades, benches where indignant faces sat and watched them careening by. Left, right and then left again, but the passageways were as intricate as a spider's web and Elaria felt very much the fly.
Her lungs burned and she stole a glance backwards. Still there, two men, not three paces from her heels. Guido yanking and pulling. Her body screaming for more air. Guido let go her arm, shouted something, but the words were lost to the wind and then he'd stopped and she was still running, speeding past him.
Pain. Bright and brilliant, knocking the desperate breath from her. For a second she had the sense that her feet were above her head and then her jaw scraped the dirt. Teeth rattled. Bursts of light filled her vision. She lay still, dust watering in her eyes, pain beating desperately against her skull.
She spat and tasted copper, not knowing if it was her own blood or the dead man's. She scrambled amongst the dirt for her dagger and a pair of strong hands pinned her against the wagon she'd tumbled over.
Her blade was out and busy before she had a chance to think. Two slashes tore the sleeve of the man's shirt and the third stabbed through his shoulder. He yelped, letting her go, clumsily reaching for the hilt, swaying backwards. Before he could fall a hand reached around the side of his face, a hand missing its little finger. A sickening crack later and her assailant fell to his knees. Dead.
"What the..."
Guido pressed the same hand over her mouth to keep her silent. Tucking her head against the floor and rolling her underneath the wagon. She stilled, watching through the spokes of the wheel, tasting sweat and leather and liquor on his palm.
Boots slammed past. Stopping at the body in the street, cursing and swearing, then sprinting onwards. Elaria watched, face against the dirt, nostrils flaring in fear. Steel encased feet, seconds later. Guardsmen feet. She squeezed Guido's arm, sure that his heavy breath would be heard.
"Bleeding elves," one of them sighed, slowing to a stop and kicking the corpse as though it were a sack of spilled wheat. "This is gonna be trouble, mark my words, Greyson."
"Oh, aye, captain."
Elaria envisaged still things. Making herself inanimate. Guido clutched her tighter in his tension.
"You saw that one slit the man's throat, did you?"
"Aye, Captain. The dark haired one..."
"I want you to make a full report, if we've any hope of containing this mayhem then that elf needs to be found."
Had Guido not been firmly clamped behind her she would have shot him a filthy look.
"Go back to the tower, send the night soil men to clean this up, get as many guardsmen as you can on the streets, I want them in full plate."
"Aye, Captain."
Elaria watched the footsteps, the guardsmen retreating back the way he'd come.
"As if my life could get any worse," the Captain of the Guard leaned down to inspect the corpse. Elaria tried to keep her breath from coming in desperate gasps, Guido's hand almost suffocating in its strength.
It seemed to take an eternity. The Captain turned the body this way and that, until its lifeless eyes stared directly at her, as though willing the man to find his murders. She could feel Guido's apprehension, his body shifting restlessly. She was certain he'd hear the small sounds, certain he'd find them. The need to run or flight itched like a healing wound.
Her heartbeat measured out the seconds. Thump, thump, thump. The Captain huffed and puffed, probing dead flesh, muttering to dead ears as he rifled through pockets.
"Bleeding peasant," his steel boot again bruised into the corpse's stomach. It let out a sigh that stank of stale vomit. Elaria would have gagged without Guido's unwavering palm.
She was tense as an unsprung trap. Thump, thump, thump. And then she shifted slightly, realised she was hearing pounding feet through the floor.
"Captain!" A boy's voice, a recruit. "Come quick! The blighters are rioting!"
"Maker save us all," the Captain cursed with a sigh. "Whereabouts?"
"The Main Sqaure, sire, they're about to string up an elf."
"Andraste's hairy tits! Lead the bloody way, boy!"
They stayed for a while, lying next to the corpse, its blue eyes seeming bluer in death, a snarling mask of accusation. One finger at a time Guido released her. Her lungs filled with thankful air, stale with death. She slumped, flat on her back, staring at the mud-flecked wooden panels underneath the wagon.
"Exciting, yes?" Guido lounged next to her, propped up on his elbow, watching her with a lascivious grin.
"You caused a bloody riot!" She hissed, elbowing him in the chest, almost banging her head on the underside of the wagon. "Murdered three people in broad daylight."
Guido shrugged. "I am a Crow, it's what we do."
"No it fucking isn't," she hit him again, numbing her hand against his armour. "Cloak and dagger, hiding in the shadows, not leaving a trail, do any of these things describe your actions today?"
"You can start thanking me for saving your life," Guido pouted.
"Argh!" Elaria thumped him again, too angry for cohesion. "Let's just...go."
Mezzanno was not a big town, but Elaria hardly recognised the place. She had strolled its streets often enough to have a vague mental map of certain areas, but it was difficult recognise landmarks when your clinging onto slippery roof tiles for your dear life.
Darkspawn hoards she could deal with. Duel to the death, no problem. Take her feet off solid ground and there better be a good reason. And there was.
People don't look up. Zevran had hissed these words at her once, heaving her protesting form to a nearby balcony. She'd clung to the frames of the window as she clung to the rooftops now, staring down at the fall, not trusting to close her eyes.
Zevran had been right of course. People really don't look up. If they did, the platoon of guards forty feet below would have been shocked to discover a blood splattered elf scrambling on her arse and palms, too terrified to stand.
"Come on," Guido hissed, once the sound of clanking metal died. He perched, as easily as his guild's namesake, on the peak of the roof.
She shuffled up to him and he heaved her to her feet. She lurched forward, clinging to his back like a baby bear. His foot slid and Elaria's heart stopped for a second before he steadied them.
"My dear, usually I would not protest and your attentions but your timing..."
She cut him off with a light thump. "Just...keep moving."
"In which direction?" He turned his head and their noses brushed together. She almost let him go with a yelp.
"That way," she raised a shaking hand from where it clung to his breast plate to point towards the main square.
"Truthfully?" Guido whispered, as another clatter of guards appeared, racing in that direction. "We would do better to get out of here now."
"All our gear's at the inn," Elaria whispered. "We can't leave without it."
With Guido's forearm in a death grip, she scuttled like a vertically impaired crab. Chanting 'don't look down', every half step another cold shiver of terror. A sudden gust of wind found her crouching again, palms flat against the roof. Guido turned back, shaking his head.
"Let me carry you."
"Just hold of my hand."
He did, though it was a slow process. One sluggish step and a time, down slants so steep her knees wanted to buckle, up inclines so slippery she had to grip to the tiles. She was sure they stuck out, silhouetted against the sky, like the two Crows they were. Elaria had to stop snatching glances at the chaos below but as they crept closer to the main square the great mass of noise was hard to ignore.
The grand oak hung with strange fruit. Elaria's hand flew to her mouth, her other still tight on Guido.
Three elves. Lifeless, limp, strangled. Eyes bulging, faces contorted and blackened. The world lurched forward. Guido threw out his arm in time to stop her falling and she flung herself into it.
Hundreds of men, elves and guards crowded around the oak, shoving and screaming. Red faces, livid and spitting with rage. Helmed men dashing between them, shields raised. Stones were flung. Any sense lost among the choir of discontent. People crushed in the madness. Arms flailed desperately, swallowed by the sea of churning rioters. An elven woman broke through the crowd, woollen dress wet with blood, hands raking through dishevelled hair as she fell to her knees beneath the still swinging feet.
Guido a shade paler than usual, no mirth in his eyes now, gripped her waist tightly. "We have to move."
"We have to do something," she whispered as two of the guards heaved the woman to her feet, as a surge in the torrent beneath them pushed a man onto a waiting blade, as men were heaved, unconscious and dead from the writhing, roaring mass.
Guido just shook his head. "There's nothing we can do..." he grimaced, averting his eyes as three looters, race indistinguishable, heaved another through a window, showering on-lookers and innocent bystanders in glass. "Come on."
He tugged at her arm but Elaria couldn't move. Guilt weighed at her feet. A strange fascination with the terror beneath her, as though observation she could atone. A child's toy lay forgotten and trampled. A shield caved in a head, pieces of skull and blood flung upwards. The guards rallied, outnumbered but not outarmoured. Then she saw the crossbowmen, swarming from an alley, lining up, ready to fire into man, woman and child alike.
"No!" she screamed, forgetting to balance in a gut-wrenching need to stop them.
Her stomach lurched, the world span as her feet left the floor so quick she didn't even struggle. Her hipbone crashed against a shoulder, jolting a shock through her spine. With one arm he clamped her, tight enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
"Don't fight or I'll fall," he grunted, bending his knees to accommodate her weight. The thrumming of arrows filled the air and Elaria craned her neck to see, but Guido had begun to move, jolting her along, roof tiles obscured her vision. They didn't obscure the screams, seconds later.
She saw the sense in not struggling, she could kick and scream, aim a well placed boot to his groin, an elbow to the base of his spine but what would be the point. A hopelessness stole over her. What can one person do in face of such chaos?
"Guido...please..." she stammered. "Put me down."
"You cannot go back there, my dear."
"I know," she muttered. "Please."
He stopped at the peak of the last roof on the row. Elaria sank to the tiles thankfully as Guido panted back his breath.
"We should have tried," she muttered, the screaming was distant now but Elaria felt every one jolt through her like a knife. "We should have..."
Guido perched before her, one hand on the apex of the roof the other on her shoulder. "All of this madness has a greater cause. This is just the first battle, my dear. If you had died here then who would end this, hmm?"
He kissed her forehead and for once the gesture was truly comforting, not dripping in intent or lewdness. He helped her to her feet.
It was worse on the ground. Above there was a certain detachment from the uproar. Here, sneaking through the backstreets, you could hear the words not just the screams, see the individual terror and not just the mass of dread.
They took cover behind a pile of crates with two other elves, who cowered away from them as though they carried the plague. Elaria could hardly blame them. Though the blood had dried, she was still coated in head to foot and Guido hardly helped, brandishing his dagger, peaking over the boxes every five seconds.
"They're trying to loot the inn," he hissed, tucking his head back down, squatting like a lion about to pounce. "We'll have to check the back way."
"How many?"
"Four men, no armour," he nodded. "We could easily dispose of them."
This brought whimpers from the elves sharing their cover, they shuffled as far away from them as possible, clinging to one another desperately. Elaria took her own glance. The men had shields strapped to their arms, swords out and glinting with murderous intent, pacing the porch of the inn, banging on the barricaded door shouting threats at the shuttered windows. Intent upon their riches, no look-out, no-one glancing over their shoulders.
"We need a distraction..." she muttered, slipping down into the shelter. She searched the vicinity, but there was nothing but dirt and the cowering elves, Guido and her. Her dagger she would need, her armour doubly so, she looked down at her boots. They weren't her best pair.
When she began unlacing Guido watched her with wariness. But as she struggled to tug it off, wincing at the blisters stinging through her socks, he grasped her heel, pulling it free in two quick jolts. Elaria grabbed the sole, sent a quick prayer, jumped out of cover and threw.
She was tucked down before it smashed into the nearby window. She heard glass spatter, thud into the crates like arrows. When she dared to peak out, the men were battle ready, stalking towards the empty shop window. Giving them a tiny gap in which to run.
They didn't hesitate. Elaria hopped along behind Guido, willing the men not to turn and see them darting into the thin alley between the inn and the shop. She suppressed a yell as a dagger of glass tore through her sock and pierced her foot. Hobbling, leaving bloodied footprints in her wake, she pressed her back tight to the wall, wincing with every step, trying not to hear the men setting to work next door, trying not to be grateful that they were ruining someone else's lives. She limped into the courtyard as Guido began banging on the backdoor.
The horses stood in the stables, oblivious to the riot in the streets surrounding them, chewing on hay, eyeing her with suspicion.
When no-one answered his knocks she stilled Guido's arm, not wanting to attract the looters. She pointed to the stables, then traced a path from its roof to the window of her room. Guido nodded, understanding silently and begun to climb.
She allowed herself a moment to breathe. A moment too long.
Something itched at the back of her skull and too late she realised the sound was steel whirling through air. She span, grabbing for her daggers, lurching left at a guess and getting swiped across her stomach for poor judgement. The swipe stole the air from her and she scrambled backwards, bootless bleeding foot slipping against the cobblestone.
She ducked as the longsword flew over her head, getting her first glance of the wielder as he pressed her backwards. His battered filthy look spoke of a bandit, and by the way he was swinging that sword, a well trained one. She parried, the effort of it thudding up her arm. Still losing desperate ground.
Slice, slice, clang. The man used his sword like a painter his brush, aiming to capture the most painful parts, swinging it this way and that in his exuberance, his face a grinning mask. Elaria ducked but as she tried to skirt around him, his knee came up, burying into her stomach.
She clung to her dagger, heaving upwards even as she fell. He gave a strangled yelp as the steel pierced his thigh, ripping downwards with her weight. She let go, colliding into his legs and taking him to the ground with her.
Too up close and personal for daggers she used her remaining boot. She kicked without aim and a satisfying crack told her she'd found a target. He groaned, body collapsing together. She shoved his weight off her, head ringing.
One-booted and battered she limped to her feet. Bracing her good foot on his thigh, she pressed her weight down, working her dagger free. He screamed, grasping uselessly at her. Blood flooded between the cobblestones.
Guido called out, a shadow upon the stable roof. Her dagger pulled free and she waved him on.
She looked down at her assailant, spitting useless curses at her as he grasped his wounded leg. She'd hit something bad. He would bleed out soon. She picked up his longsword, testing the weight of it.
"I've a family you cocksucking bitch," he wheezed at her, trying to push himself up on his palms and flopping uselessly to the ground.
Elaria found she didn't care. Elissa had been right. She'd straddled the fence too long. There was years of innocent blood on her hands. She'd toiled through it in the Fade. The man who had attacked her, the three elves hanging, this opportunistic looter, what were they but a few more nameless kills.
The force of her blow severed his head with a thud.
AN: Thank you all, as always, for your reviews, favs and follows. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think. Only 68 days 17 hours and 07 minutes to go before Inquisition! Are you all suitably excited? Have a feeling my free time this winter will be at a premium and am therefore toying with the idea of making that my deadline for finishing Severed but we shall have to see how it goes! Right, ramble over. Best wishes to you all.
