Chapter 1: The Drumming Ploughland
On Abigail Hawke's eighteenth name day, the world came to an end.
She spent the day singing and drinking and fucking with wild abandon. The pretty little camp follower proved to be quite a workout, but by the time Abigail sent her on her way with a smile on her face and a noticeable tremble in her knees there were still hours to kill before sundown.
The party in the mess was a sight to behold. Men and women from neighboring battalions snuck in to partake of the festivities before they could be corralled by the officers. Many soldiers, Abigail included, wheedled at the quartermaster until he allowed them to cash in a week's worth of liquor rations for the celebration. They sang songs of love and lust and triumph, danced until the ancient stones beneath their feet began to shake. Even her dour, broad-as-an-ox little brother joined in the drunken revelry.
And why shouldn't he, she thought to herself as she swaggered back to the barracks with ice-cold water tricking down the back of her tunic. They were soldiers in a winning war, well fed and well paid. They could finally keep their mother and sister in some semblance of comfort. The name Hawke was, at long last, on the right side of the law.
The hardened leather she buckled across her body was still stiff, creaking when she rolled her shoulder and flexed her arms. The Therin crest embossed in brightest red over her breast filled her with a strange sense of hope and pride. She shook her head vigorously to clear out the last of the alcohol's influence and fished a band of fabric from the bottom of her pack and pulled it down around her neck. Her oldest lucky charm, the remnants of the woolen coat she wore as a girl on the day she first took down a bird with her father, had seen her through ever victory thus far and would surely see another with the morn.
For tonight they were but soldiers, and tomorrow they would be heroes.
She grabbed slung her bow over her shoulder, clipped her quiver to her belt and sheathed her knife. The drums were beginning to thunder and the sun had finally sunk fully behind the ruins of Ostagar.
She thought little of the dull, orange glow taking hold on the opposite horizon.
The tide of monsters was endless. She had gone through of her supply of arrows twice over, been forced to lift ammunition from her fallen squad mates, to rip the blackened, twisted shafts from their flesh just to keep the 'spawn from successfully scaling the wall. If the signal fire wasn't lit soon, they would be overrun.
Underneath the burning in her shoulders and the tight awareness born of fear that prickled at her skin, Abigail was furious. This was to be the final triumph of King Cailan's war, the last, fetid breath the darkness the dwelled beneath the earth. This was not the promised battle. This was a massacre.
Out of arrows and out of breath, she leaned back against the support wall and swiped the rain and sweat from her eyes. High above her head in the middle distance, a fire sprang to life in the gloom. She could have wept with relief, pushing herself towards the edge of the slick, bloodied ledge to catch sight of the reinforcement battalion. They were there in the distance behind the battle, steel knights glinting darkly against the black forest.
They were there, and they were receding further into the night.
"No!" she roared, the sound dying to a whimper as the sole other archer fell to the stone in a gurgling heap beside her. She had seen the signal fire, seen it with her own eyes. They were abandoning those still at the keep to slaughter. Her brigade. The Wardens. The fucking King.
The instincts of survival tore down her arms with old, well-learned speed. She pulled the sodden strip of wool up over her nose and mouth and lurched towards a cleared ladder. When she reached the ground, something threw her hard against the wall.
The beast loomed over her. It stank of rotting meat and ancient magic, snapping towards her face with its lipless, yellowed grin. She struggled against the gauntleted arm pinning her to the stone, wedging a hand to the small of her back and whipping her knife towards the creature's neck. It stumbled backwards, spurting ink-black blood.
She screamed as splash fell across the bridge of her nose, feeling hot as boiling against her skin. Wiping furiously with gloved hands as her eyes watered with pain, she swallowed down the terror rising up her throat and took off into the chaos. With luck and skill, she managed to slip from the battle without any further contact.
A mile down the muddy path beaten by the reinforcements' retreat she heard a single set of heavy footsteps squelching in the earth. She bared her knife and held her breath as a knight pitched towards her. She could have laughed with joy when he ripped off his helmet to reveal Carver's disheveled head. She fell to her knees, thanked her father for his tenacity, thanked the Maker for his safety, and emptied her stomach all over the road.
"Oh, thank the Maker," he wheezed, pulling her up into an iron embrace as he stumbled before her. "I couldn't leave you, sister. Teyrn Mac Tir ordered the retreat but I couldn't leave you to those monsters. I couldn't." He whispered it like a prayer, over and over again even as his head dropped against her shoulder. She smoothed over his hair as he began to weep.
She could have wept, too. For their comrades. Their future. But she did not have that luxury, had not had it since the day their father died. She was the eldest, and the burden of survival was hers to bear. They had fought for as long as they could.
Now it was time to run.
It took a week to return to Lothering, crawling through the brush to avoid the Imperial Highway. Carver had ceased speaking to her, preferring to stew in the impotent rage of being cheated out of yet another life. Abigail could understand his feelings, even abide them when it became apparent that his will to carry on was irrevocably intertwined with them, but she was at her wits end by the time they blew into the run-down farmhouse that had been their home for seven long years.
Their mother Leandra and sister Bethany had been told by the royal army that Abigail and Carver were lost in the battle of Ostagar, and fell upon them hysterically when the realization of their survival penetrated the grief that had hung over the house for many days. The story was told, the betrayal laid bare, and the family Hawke prepared for the road yet again.
The meager offering of the army's death pay would barely get them to the shore. As remiss as Abigail was to return to her first trade, they needed more coin if they were to escape the Blight. She moved quietly through the town, slipping into one group of frenzied farmers after another until she reached the Chantry. She waited until the chanter scurried away to calm the rabid wailing of the local doom-sayer before she approached the donation box.
"I'll have to ask for forgiveness later, Maker," she muttered under her breath as she popped the lock. "I need these a hell of a lot more than you do right now." The box was almost empty, but from weight alone she could discern ten crowns and three sovereigns. When she tried to withdraw the money a gauntled hand clamped down around her wrist.
She felt the blood drain from her face as she twisted around to see her captor. It was a woman, tall and fine featured with a dirty bandage tied down over one eye. The other was a steely blue, regarding her with lethal sort of silence that chilled Abigail down to her bones. It took a moment to realize that she had seen this woman before, sitting off with the solemn-as-stone Wardens at the edge of camp. She'd had two eyes then, and the shield of a well-known house.
"M-milady Cousland, please, I can expl–"
"You were at Ostagar," the Warden interrupted, voice roughened as if by smoke. "You were an archer on the wall." Abigail nodded frantically, glancing between her own hand and the Warden's face. She released the coins to a noisy series of thunks on the bottom of the wooden box. The Warden released her hand.
Abigail turned on her heel, ready to flee for her life when the Warden laid a heavy hand on her shoulder.
"Milady, I beg of you. I saw what happened; the fire, the retreat. I had no choice but to leave my post, I have to protect my family, I –"
She was interrupted again, this time by the weight of a rough canvas money bag being forced into her hand. Her eyes went big at the feel of it. That was no less than fifty sovereigns.
"Take this and leave here. Do not stop until there is an ocean between you and this place, do you understand me?" the Warden asked, staring down Abigail with that terrifying eye.
"Yes, milady; thank you, thank you a thousand times." The Warden's expression seemed to soften as she released Abigail.
"Go on then," the Warden ordered. "Take care of your family. May the Maker watch over your path." To her dying day, Abigail thought she never ran as fast as she did away from the Lothering Chantry.
"Abby, whatever's the matter?" her mother inquired when she burst through the door. "You look as though you've seen a ghost."
"I may have, but she bloody well gave us our lives," Abigail panted as she dropped the bag of money on the kitchen table.
"Pack everything you can carry. We're going to Gwaren."
"Captain Vallen!" Carter called out in surprise as they peaked another blackened hill. Abigail watched a fearsome looking red-headed woman take the head off a grey-skinned monster before she glanced towards them. Another of the 'spawn rose up behind her, a broadsword towering above its head. Abigail's arrow found its eye before it could tighten its ropey arms to strike.
"Hawke?" the captain panted as she wiped the sweat from her eyes. "Maker, but the world is small. I was told you were dead, soldier." Carver walked up to her with a grim smile, grasping her forearm in a show of respect. "You should have known I was too stubborn for that, ma'am."
"Is this your family, then?" the captain asked, nodding at the rest as they approached. Carver nodded sharply. "My mother Leandra, my twin sister Bethany, and my elder sister Abigail."
"A flock of Hawkes, as it were," Abigail quipped as she shook the captain's hand. The captain failed to restrain a short, sharp laugh. "I am Aveline Vallen," she said in introduction, "I trained many of the new recruits for Ostagar, your brother included."
"A distinct pleasure, I'm sure," Abigail supplied with a grin.
"We're likely to last a little longer if we move forward together. Three soldiers for three civilians," Aveline said as she wiped the blood from her sword with a grimace, the faint spark of comforting humor suffocating under the weight of the circumstance.
"Are you traveling with someone, Captain?" Carver asked as they edged along a crag in the rock. Aveline paled visibly. "My husband, Wesley. He's...he's been injured."
The rounded the corner to see an armored man crouched back against the cliff face, a hulking brute of a 'spawn towering over him with blade bared. The beast was too well armored to fell with a single arrow, and Abigail knew the blade would fall before Carver could cover the distance.
"Bethy, give us a hand," she asked firmly, drawing and aiming for a weak joist by the creature's neck. She felt the sudden loss of moisture in the air, the burst of cold rush over the space above her shoulder, and watched as the spell connect soundly with its target. When she saw the tell-tale fingers of ice splinter up across the armor, she released.
Instead of the gratitude she expected to see on the ashen face of Wesley Vallen, Abigail found only hatred when Aveline helped him to his feet. Then her eyes fell to the flaming sword embossed upon his breastplate.
"Apostate," he hissed, trying to raise his shattered sword as he stumbled towards them. Rage and terror burned beneath Abigail's skin in equal measure as she placed herself between her sister and the templar, wordless signaling Carver to guard their mother.
"Maker, help me; if you take one more step towards her I will ensure there is not enough left of you for the pyre," she snarled.
"The Order dictates..." he ground out, trying in vain to shake the captain off his arm.
"Wesley, please," Aveline entreated, the softness in her voice enough to startle Abigail away from her blinding fear. "They saved us. The Maker understands."
The templar looked as if he wanted to quarrel with the words, but his broken body went slack against the captain as he relinquished his stand. "Of course," he sighed, glancing warily over at Bethany as he allowed himself to be lead forward.
"We must hurry," Aveline said with the authority of an officer, taking point on the motley party. "Their numbers have only grown thicker the further south we go, and we will be forced into the Wilds if we do not move with haste."
Abigail sheathed her knife, tarrying for a moment despite her brother's glare as he shepherded their mother forward.
"Is it wise to trust them, Abby?" Bethany asked quietly. Abigail cast a weary smile over her shoulder and reached down to grasp her sister's hand.
"It seems we have little choice in the matter," she replied, nodding in the direction the others had disappeared.
"Come along, now. It seems as if the mountain flattens out up there."
Had it only been a day? Abigail wedged herself further into the dank corner at the thought, grinding her teeth together against the wave of nausea and grief. Every time she closed her eyes she saw her failure played over and over. Felt Carver jerk away from her half-hearted restraint. Heard the wet snap of his spine as the monster cast him aside. Smelled the rank, hot copper of his lifeblood muddying the earth.
Every time she opened her eyes, it all became real once again. She could feel the heat of her mother's grief and hate from across the gloomy hold of the ship. See Aveline crumpled against the hull, tracing over a bloodstain on her arm that was all that remained of her husband. Taste the sorrow of every man and woman crammed down there with them, stripped of their homes and their nation.
Abigail closed her eyes again, squeezing the amulet in her fist hard enough to draw blood. To think that a bloody legend had swooped in to save them all from sharing Carver's fate. The Witch was terrifying, more so as the tall, disdainful woman than the ancient dragon. To act as a courier in exchange for the safety of what remained of her family seemed a simple trade to make, but Abigail could not shake the edge of dread that pulsed darkly beneath the layers of exhaustion and self-loathing.
"Abby?" a small voice asked beside her. She glanced up to see Bethany crouch down beside her, eyes red-rimmed and face still streaked with dirt.
"You should be with Mum, Bethy," Abigail admonished quietly, giving Bethany a sad half-smile before curling back into herself. She stiffened when she felt a gentle pressure on the back of her shoulder.
"Mum's asleep, and I want to sit with you." Abigail could hear Bethany swallow before she continued, feel her shudder. "Please, Abby? I'm so scared."
Abigail was helpless to relent. She twisted around and draped her arm over Bethany's shoulders, rested a hand in her sweat-stiff hair. "I'm sorry," Abigail whispered as her eyes began to sting again.
"We all are," Bethany mumbled into Abigail's shoulder. "I should have been faster, Mum shouldn't have said all those awful things."
"She was right," Abigail interrupted sharply. "I let him die. I left him for those vermin to devour. Our brother. It should have been me. It would have been better-"
"Stop it," Bethany hissed, smacking the flat of her hand against a bruise on Abigail's side. "Without you the darkspawn would have taken us all, you know that. You pulled Aveline back from the edge when Wesley..." She barely stifled a sob. Abigail stayed silent and held her close. Guilt boiled like acid beneath her skin.
"I need my sister, Abby. I need you to tell me we'll be alright."
"I can do that," Abigail murmured, pressing a kiss to Bethany's forehead. Every bone in her body ached with her failure, but she could still do something to soothe some of the pain she had caused. "I doubt it will happen anytime soon, but we will be someday. I'll take care of us."
"We have to take care of each other," Bethany protested as she shifted to meet Abigail's eyes. "You can't carry all this yourself. I want to help." Abigail's heart broke a little at that, at the sister who was still but a girl with wide eyes and skinned knees in her mind's eye asking for the weight Abigail sought desperately to bear alone.
"We always did make an excellent team," Abigail conceded with a shadow of a smile. The response seemed to satisfy Bethany, and they fell into the hypnotic silence of the sea rocking against the hull.
"What do you think Kirkwall will be like?" Bethany asked sometime later, the words slow and sleepy. Abigail had not thought that far ahead yet.
"I'm not sure," she sighed as Bethany fell asleep on her shoulder.
"It can't be worse than this."