Everyone walked in a painful silence, the only sound was the howl of the wind and the crackle of burning wood and flesh. Kirkwall was in ruin, which is what Hawke knew would happen. The moment she set foot in the City of Chains, Trinity knew it would all end in ruin.
Suddenly, Hawke's ears tuned in to a very hushed conversation at the back of the group between Varric and Alistair. Usually she wouldn't try and listen in to private conversations, but the minute she heard her name, she immediately began to listen.
"Is Hawke alright? She seems a little…sterner than she appeared to be earlier."
"Well let me put it this way, your Highness. If you had to turn against everything you believe in by siding with the people that have hunted you down, you have just killed your best friend and your lover is out cold. You wouldn't exactly be 'peachy', would you?"
"I…Guess I would be pretty annoyed."
"You think?"
Hawke's stern frown cracked into a small smile; Varric always had her back, and really wasn't afraid of standing up for her in front of royalty. Her frown returned in an instant when she glared at the commotion that was happening in the entrance courtyard to the Gallows. She felt the rage build up inside her like a relentless rampaging forest fire, and the lyrium flowing through her veins became red hot as her stroll turned into a stride, and then into a full-on sprint. Trinity heard her friends call out for her before realising what was going on, but she was too busy focusing on conjuring a fireball to set that metal-clad bitch alight.
Meredith and her templars, apart from Cullen, had surrounded Sebastian, Isabella and a passed-out Fenris. Isabella stood in a defensive stance in front of the prince, who was still carrying the elf.
"Stand down, Meredith. These three are none of our concern," Cullen pleaded with the Knight Commander, who held her sword at arms-length. It seemed to have been modified somehow since it was emitting an eerie crimson glow.
"I can sense the lyrium flowing through that elf's blood. Maker, you can even see the lyrium markings on his skin! He must be destroyed."
"Knight Commander, Fenris is injured we really must get him to safety!" Sebastian attempted to sway Meredith.
Hawke finally fired her fireball towards Meredith, but it seemed to evaporate the moment it was meant to hit her head.
Meredith spun around in an instant, and her templars gathered around her, including Cullen.
"Ah the Champion; here we are at long last," Meredith smirked wickedly. Hawke quickly nodded to Sebastian to get back to her estate when he hesitated, the prince quickly got himself together and sprinted away with Fenris still in his arms.
"After all I have gone against to side with you of all people, you would dare to go for innocents? My friends no less," Hawke snapped, trying to control her anger physically appearing by shakes, but it was evident in her eyes to everyone,
"You have helped me achieve the impossible; kill every single mage in Kirkwall, and for that; you will be taken down last," Meredith's usual scowl returned whilst her templars started to become uneasy.
"Are you fucking serious? I have gone against everything I have ever been taught, everything I have believed in. I sided with the order that hunted me down for all these years and now you want to end the person that saved your hide?" she growled, her face twisted with anger.
Varric looked up at Hawke in pure surprise; none of them had seen her that angry before, not even when those blood mages kidnapped Carver. This was a whole new side of Trinity that had been hiding for so long, and now she was ready to explode.
"Knight Commander, I thought we were actually going to arrest the Champion and her companions," Cullen confronted Meredith, whose eyes had started to become erratic and maddening.
"You will do as I command, Cullen," she replied coolly.
But Cullen stood his ground, "No! I defended you when Thrask began whispering that you were mad. You have already used Haw-I mean the Champion to as far as she can go. But this is too far…"
"I will not allow this! We must stay true to our paths," Meredith unsheathed her sword and pointed it towards her fellow templar, that same eerie power flowing through the twisted sword began to shine red.
"Andraster's dimpled butt-cheeks…" gasped Varric.
"You recognise it, do you not?" Meredith turned to Hawke again, a sadistic smile on her face as she began admiring her own blade, caressing it with her hand as if it were her lover, "lyrium in the purest form, straight from the Deep Roads. The dwarf charged a great deal for his prize."
Hawke and Varric's eyes widened with horror at the realisation; Bartrand had sold the lyrium idol to Meredith, and she made someone merge it with the sword to make it become this weapon to specifically slaughter mages with the very same power that gave them their gift.
"That idol drove my brother bat-shit crazy and he's now dead because of it!" Varric snapped, his trigger finger started to itch as he slowly moved his hand to Bianca II's trigger.
"He was weak, where as I am not," Meredith snapped back before pointing the sword, the tip almost scraping the skin between Hawke's eyes, "All of you! I want this mage's head, now!"
Her templars hesitated before Cullen stood his ground, yet again. Hawke was now becoming quite fond of this new side of Cullen; maybe she could forget that little incident a couple of years back.
"Enough! This is not what the order stands for, Knight Commander step down," Cullen's voice became quite angry, as if he were protecting Hawke. He was doing all that he could to prevent her any harm, as always.
"I relieve you of your command."
At those words Meredith turned to her second-in-command, her eyes maddened by the lyrium flowing through her sword. Her face suddenly turns into a disappointed frown.
"My own Knight Captain falls prey to the influence of blood magic, you all have!" Meredith, with her sword that was now glowing erratically with power turned to each of her templars, pointing her sword menacingly to each of them, "You are all weak! Allowing the mages to control your minds, to turn you against me! Well I don't need any of you."
She turned once more to Hawke and her companions, who were already grasping their weapons. Meredith glared into Hawke's eyes; her sword began to envelop her with red light.
"I will defend this city myself!"
Suddenly, running footsteps could be heard coming towards the commotion. Hawke's eyes started to well with tears as she realised who it was;
"You will have to go through me first!" Carver panted, standing by his sister's side as he tried to gather his breath, staring at Meredith.
"Carver…"
"I couldn't leave my sister behind, not after all you have done for me."
"What about Merrill?"
"She's safe, taking care of Winter."
Hawke smiled before glaring back at Meredith, and her eyebrows rose in surprise when she watched Cullen stand beside Carver, an arm outstretched slightly in some way to protect Hawke.
"You will have to go through me too."
Meredith's eyes darted from one man to the other as the other templars joined the two men, a little sheepishly, "Traitors! I will have your heads!"
"Just like Bartrand, she's lost it," Varric sighed, and he was right.
Meredith suddenly plunged her sword into the ground and began an insane ranting that Hawke couldn't even understand.
"Templars, on me!" Cullen summoned the templars to gather around him as he began shouting orders.
Hawke knew this was the final straw; it was now or never to gain some sense of safety to Kirkwall by striking down the insane Meredith, whose mind had been poisoned by the lyrium. She already blamed herself for allowing this to happen, and that if she had not funded the expedition, none of this would have happened.
But without that expedition, she would have never met her friends, she would have never felt love again, and her brother would have never found his true love either. Hawke was rarely one for religion, but ever since she had almost died in that battle with Lucius, she thanked the Maker silently each day for the life she had been given, and now it was her time to stop the one thing that was in her way.
Suddenly, two huge bronze statues of the slaves started to creak with movement.
"Shit…" Hawke muttered before reaching for her staff, becoming her usual self to try and keep everyone calm "Right everyone! Usual battle stances; Carver, your Highness, on me! Everyone else, distract those bronze bastards! I'll stop the blonde bitch!"
"Our Champion is back everyone!" Bianca laughed as she paired up with her husband and son, the family running towards one of the statues.
Cullen heard Hawke's orders and ordered a portion of his templars to go after another one of the statues, whilst he and a few others went towards the Knight Commander.
"It's show time," Hawke muttered as she conjured a fireball in her hand and hurtled it towards Meredith.
The boat swayed peacefully, despite everything that had happened, the sea remained calm. Sebastian was desperately trying to bandage Fenris' wounds with torn fabric from a spare sail Isabella had found. Isabella, being the pirate captain as she is, was sailing the boat towards Lowtown as safely as she could.
"Is he alright down there?" Isabella shouted from the helm.
"He has broken almost every bone in his body and his pulse is slowing. Hawke really needs to hurry," Sebastian replied, trying to hide the panic in his voice.
Isabella just shook her head slightly, still trying to get her head around why Sebastian is so protective over Fenris. She knew that the pair shared extremely similar views and saw themselves as brothers, but could there possibly be more? Isabella immediately smirked at the idea before shaking it from her mind, knowing it was mad to think of them in that way.
They could both hear the sounds of battle coming from the Gallows, Sebastian muttered a quick prayer to the Maker and his Bride before Isabella sailed the boat into the Lowtown docks. But some people were already waiting there for them.
"Uncle Fen!" Winter cried out in horror as she saw the crushed body of the man who sword to protect her.
"Is he conscious?" Katherine didn't bother to ask what happened, she got straight down to it.
"He's barely holding on, we need to get him to Hawke's estate."
"Damn it! I wish Wynne had come along, Winter, Merrill and I will provide you with cover whilst you get the elf to safety."
"Where's Carver?" Isabella quirked an eyebrow as she quickly tied the boat to the mooring post.
"He went back to fight with Hawke and the others, I begged him not to go but he said it was something he had to do because he had let down his sister so many times before and-"
"Hush pet, he's probably going to come back safe," Isabella smiled before hugging Merrill, who was now ranting about how good it was to see the pirate queen so quickly.
Sebastian carefully held Fenris up onto his feet, Katherine holding his other arm around her shoulders as the pair worked together to hold up the unconscious elf.
"Now, as lovely as it was to see you two, I need to get back to the Gallows, Hawke will need a bit of help coming back and she's not exactly going to swim," Isabella smirked as she gave Sebastian a quick peck on the cheek before untying the rope that held her boat in place and before anyone could protest, she was already riding the winds back to the Gallows.
Most of the templars had been wiped out, knocked unconscious or killed by the massive statues. Spells couldn't cut it, blades couldn't mark it; it was time for a new tactic.
"Carver! Your Highness! Give me a boost up!" Hawke shouted between deflecting a burst of power from Meredith's sword with a protective shield.
"You can call me Alistair, you know!" he shouted back in reply as he dodged a giant bronze foot.
"Just give me a Blighted boost up," Hawke laughed as she sprinted towards the pair who had quickly crossed their hands in a self-made springboard.
Hawke leapt onto their hands and was sent hurtling upwards (with a little boost of force magic) towards the neck of the statue so she could find a weakness. She started to slide down the back since it was made of pure bronze, the statue seemed too busy trying to stomp her companions below. She managed to hold onto a small crevice in its back, but with it being made of bronze, it cut into her hand. Screaming in a mixture of pain and determination, she pulled herself up so that her foot replaced her hand. Hawke now knew that using magic would be dangerous, since blood was present, so she quickly used her healing magic to stop the bleeding, and whilst she did that, she noticed a faint, red glow at the back of the statue's neck.
"I found it!" She declared, sighing with relief as she charged the same spell she had used on Anders earlier on that glowing spot. Hawke channelled all her energy and it suddenly came bursting out, completely shattering the statue into pieces.
Suddenly, Hawke started falling to the ground and was caught by Cullen, who just simply smiled at her before helping her back onto her feet.
"There's a glowing spot at the back of its neck! Varric, Bianca, Blaize; take it down! It is time I go kill myself a crazed templar," Hawke laughed her usual confident chuckle before racing towards Meredith, dodging bursts of red lyrium as she approached.
Hawke swirled her staff in her hand so that the bladed end faced ahead as she started to channel all her rage and energy into powered the spear. Meredith was already weak from the damage she had already taken from both the lyrium sucking the life-force out of her, and the slashes and crossbow bolts from her companions and the templars.
She swung her staff, the blade cutting through Meredith's thick steel armour and sliced into her hip, cutting a main artery. The Knight Commander roared in agony as she stumbled backwards towards the stairs. An almighty crash from the statue falling to ground echoed through the courtyard as everyone stood still, watching Hawke and Meredith.
The Knight Commander had now been pretty much taken over by the power of the lyrium; her eyes were glowing red as well as sections of her armour and face.
"I will not be defeated!" Red electric-looking energy started to spark from Meredith's body as she regained her footing, holding her sword in front of her as it hovered in the air, "Maker! Aid your humble servant!"
But the power of the lyrium idol was too much for the sword, and Meredith, to wield. The sword shattered into a million tiny pieces and Meredith's body absorbed the power. Despite what she said earlier, she was obviously not strong enough to take it.
Meredith screamed a bloodcurdling scream as she fell onto her knees, her body being completely engulfed by the idol's power as her arms suddenly became rigid, her body rapidly turning into what appeared to be stone. Her eyes still continued to glow until all her life force was drained, her body now became a husk.
One of her templars knelt before the husk of Meredith, seeming to check for signs of life, but obviously finding none. Everyone else gathered around the now dead Meredith, not knowing what to do. Cullen looked up at Hawke, expecting her to say something. As did the rest of her companions;
"Champion, I mean Hawke…" Cullen started to speak but Hawke quickly silenced him.
"I don't have time to deal with all this right now. Come by the mansion later after you have dealt with…This mess," she gestured to Meredith before walking away, her head held high.
The others looked to Varric, but he held up his hands in defence, "Hey now don't look at me! I'm just the beardless dwarf that talks too much, now if you'll excuse us, but one of our friends is gravely injured and we must get back."