A/N: This is the third and final installment in the 'No Compromise' serial. It's quite a bit longer than the first two! For those who read the second chapter right after it came out, it has since been edited to include a short conversation near the end where Hawke reacts to the news of Anders' death. Funny how this was originally supposed to be a one-shot. :) Thank you for reading! I hope you've enjoyed it.
Fenris was sulking.
That in itself was not a surprise. In the past, however, Hawke usually had some inkling of what was wrong. Under normal circumstances, she might let her mind wander, wracking her brain to determine what slight, real or imagined, had caused his bad temper. Not tonight.
Kirkwall was crumbling. They hurried through the Lowtown streets, occasionally having to double back because the doors that had originally quelled slave rebellion in the district had been closed to protect its citizenry. The dust from the ruined Chantry hung thick in the air, even here, and fires burned unchecked in the streets and buildings. It was far too familiar for comfort. Hawke was struck by a memory – nearly four years ago, the city had been plunged into chaos when the Qunari's patience ran out, and they attacked. Somehow she had found herself in the thick of it then, too.
Skirmishes between mages and templars raged in the streets; for the most part, Hawke and her companions tried to stay out of them. The ferry was bobbing in the marina, almost as though it was waiting for them. The ferryman shoved off without a word as soon as they were aboard.
The Gallows loomed before them. During her first two years in Kirkwall, she and Bethany had looked over their shoulders at every turn, expecting to see templars swooping down upon them. Then the Deep Roads had happened, and Bethany went off to become a Grey Warden. Hawke had often wondered what might have happened had she heeded their mother's advice and left Bethany behind, or had she not been touched by the darkspawn taint. Would her sister be a Circle mage now? And would that have broken Leandra's heart nearly as much as becoming a Grey Warden had? Hawke pushed the thoughts from her mind. What was done was done.
In what seemed like no time at all, they had reached the stairs that led to the Gallows courtyard. As Hawke stepped off the boat, she turned to her companions. "Before we go in there, let's get one thing straight." She took a deep breath. "I would have liked to settle this without bloodshed, but that's not an option now. Meredith won't let this go down without a fight. If it comes to choosing sides, I'll protect the mages. I hope that's not a problem."
"I'm in," Varric said immediately. "This promises to be your biggest show yet, Hawke. Wouldn't miss that for the world."
"Of course I'll help you," Merrill said. "It wasn't their fault. We must protect them."
"Hawke, I'm not sure I can do this," Aveline said, her green eyes troubled. "I'm the Guard-Captain. I have to set an example."
"Don't you see, Aveline? You'll be protecting the innocent from a madwoman who would slaughter them all for the actions of one man. Regardless of how you feel about mages, they shouldn't have to take the fall for Anders." Hawke glanced at Fenris, who was determinedly not looking at her. "He's already paid the price for his actions."
"Please, Aveline," said Hawke. "You've been by my side longer than anyone in Kirkwall. Don't abandon me now, friend."
"Then . . . my place is with you," Aveline said.
"Fenris?" All eyes turned expectantly on the elf.
"Why don't we give you two a minute," Aveline said gently, steering everyone else a short distance away.
"If you've something to say, now would be a good time," Hawke said, folding her arms over her chest.
Fenris met her eyes. His own were blazing, a great rage boiling up behind the normally shadowed green irises. But there was something else – Hawke knew him better than anyone, and behind his anger there was a kind of . . . hurt. Hawke had long ago realized that Fenris, like his namesake, reacted to pain by lashing out.
"Out with it," she said firmly.
He swore in Arcanum. "You would have spared him," he said, each syllable ridden with scorn.
"Here we go," Hawke said, casting her eyes skyward briefly. "Yes, Fenris, I would have spared Anders. But I am not naïve." She stopped and frowned. "Why did you kill him? You, and not Meredith?"
"I believed you dead by his hand," Fenris growled. "I could not let him live."
"Oh, Fenris," Hawke said in exasperation, and she reached out to cup his face in her hands. He flinched, but his wrath was spent, the last of his ire ebbing from the depths of his eyes. Hawke's mercy, so infuriating when directed elsewhere, was always a balm to his own troubled spirit. "Don't believe for a moment that I blame you for it. What you did was just."
Fenris said nothing.
"All I need to know now is whether or not you will fight with me to protect the mages," Hawke said. She took a deep breath. Her next words were the hardest thing she had to say. "If you can't, I understand. But then I need you to go, and I can never follow." She felt tears come to her eyes, and fought them down quickly. She needed all her faculties for what was certain to be the most difficult fight of her life. It seemed like years ago that the two of them had been entwined in her bed, whispering hesitant I love yous in the dark.
Fenris smiled, that small, half-smile that was so dear to Hawke's heart. "You lead me to strange places, Hawke," he said, and immediately Hawke knew all was well again between them. He looked over at Merrill, who blushed and looked away; Aveline, who stared stonily back at him; Varric, who winked with a 'go get her' sort of look.
"I may not get the chance to say this again," he began, and cursed how awkward the words felt on his tongue. "Meeting you was the most important thing that ever happened to me, Hawke. Promise me you won't die."
"I've already died once today," Hawke quipped. "Twice in one day would just be overkill, don't you think?"
Fenris made a noise in his throat. "I can't bear the thought of living without you."
"I don't make that promise unless you do," Hawke said seriously.
"Nothing is going to keep me from you," Fenris said, and then she was in his arms, one gauntleted hand cool on her neck and his lips upon hers. It was a wild, consuming kiss, one that Hawke would very much have liked to get caught up in and swept away, but a loud wolf whistle and an impatient 'ahem' interrupted. Fenris pulled away from her slowly, his eyes still smoldering, the promise of a lifetime of such kisses after this battle left burning on her lips.
"Let's get this show on the road!" Varric called. Merrill was watching them with far too much interest, and Aveline was trying (and failing) to look disapproving.
"I'm assuming you've worked out your differences, then?" Aveline said as they entered the Gallows. Hawke just grinned.
Meredith and Orsino were in the center of the courtyard, circling each other like wild animals, flanked by a large group of templars and Circle mages, respectively. Bodies of both sides littered the ground. Orsino shot a bolt of arcane energy at the Knight-Commander, but it seemed to merely glance off her armor, leaving a dark smear and vanishing with a crackle and the smell of burnt metal. Meredith had not yet drawn her weapon, apparently thinking Orsino and his magic not nearly threatening enough to warrant it. Her templars crouched, swords at the ready, ready to charge the mages at a single word.
"I don't suppose there's any popcorn left, is there?" Hawke said lightly. Behind her, Varric snorted.
Meredith turned at the sound of her voice. To Hawke's delight, the Knight-Commander paled. "Champion! How did you – that is, you were – but – you're alive?"
"Indeed," Hawke said, attempting an exaggerated bow. Her innards screamed in protest; Bethany's healing had put her back together, but she was still not completely whole. Orsino and Meredith seemed to have completely forgotten about each other with Hawke's arrival.
"And what of – her Grace?" Meredith asked, her blue eyes wide. Hawke was sure she read uncertainty and – was that fear, or disappointment? – within their depths. Hawke seized upon it.
"Alive," Hawke said firmly. The time for jokes and diplomacy had passed. "She is safe and resting, for the moment. But that's not what you wanted, is it, Knight-Commander? You needed an excuse to invoke the Right of Annulment, and Anders practically gift-wrapped it and put a nice bow on top."
"How dare you!" Meredith said. "I will do whatever it takes to protect this city, and some Fereldan bitch will not stop me!"
"Oh, that's nice," Hawke said conversationally, her sapphire eyes narrowing. "I went from 'Champion of Kirkwall' to 'Fereldan bitch' in less than a minute."
Her companions and Orsino gasped collectively as Meredith slapped her. Hawke didn't see it coming; pain seared through her jaw and the inside of her cheek split open. Hawke spat a mouthful of blood on the ground, reaching a hand up to touch her burning face. She could sense Fenris nearly shaking with suppressed rage behind her, his tattoos a faint glow under his armor.
"I should gut you for your insolence," Meredith snarled, reaching for the hilt of her sword, but before she could draw, Knight-Captain Cullen stepped between them.
"Stand down, Knight-Commander," Cullen said firmly. "We should arrest them."
"You will do as I command, Cullen," she said, her tone brooking no argument.
"No," he said. "I defended you when Thrask started asking questions, but I cannot allow you to murder the Champion. This is going too far."
"You will obey! I will tolerate no insubordination! There can be no compromise with fools! If you protect these dogs, you shall die like one!" Meredith shrieked. She drew her immense sword, a long, wickedly pointed blade that glowed red in the twilight. Cullen stumbled backwards, throwing up his hands, the tip just inches from his throat.
"Andraste's dimpled buttcheeks!" Varric whispered into the tense silence.
"You recognize it, do you not?" Meredith said, a note of glee in her voice. "Pure lyrium, taken from the Deep Roads. The dwarf charged a great deal for it."
"I'll bet he did," Varric muttered. Aveline cursed under her breath. The Circle mages present had begun to whisper among themselves, filling the Gallows with a sound like reeds blowing in the wind.
"It seems a lot more sword-like than I remember," Hawke said. Meredith's lip curled.
"All of you! I want her dead!" Meredith shouted to her templars, swinging her sword to point at Hawke. "Now!"
"Enough!" Cullen said. "This is not what the Order stands for. Knight-Commander Meredith, step down. I relieve you of your command."
"My own Knight-Captain has fallen prey to the influence of blood magic," Meredith said, shaking her head. "For this, Cullen, you must pay the price."
Meredith strode up to the Knight-Captain, held him by one armored shoulder, and ran him through. The lyrium blade buzzed as it penetrated Cullen's platemail, the metal melting at its touch like butter. Cullen looked up at her, shocked. "Knight-Commander," he mumbled, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth.
Meredith pushed him away roughly, pulling her blade free. Cullen stumbled backwards, falling to his knees before pitching forward, lying on his belly on the cold stone, head turned to one side. The light had gone out of his hazel eyes.
In the eerie silence that follow Cullen's death, the templars behind Meredith began backing away slowly. Their faces were hidden by their shuttered helms, but Hawke knew that whether they recognized it or not, they had already switched sides.
"This is madness! She has turned on her own!" Orsino shouted desperately. "We must strike!" He twirled his staff before him and began casting. The Circle mages followed his lead. Chaos erupted in the Gallows as mages and templars alike turned on Meredith.
Hawke rallied her companions, drawing her daggers. "Let's do this!" She threw herself into the fray, darting around Meredith, stabbing anywhere she could reach without retribution. Time after time her blade met armor. It seemed the Knight-Commander was as untouchable as her arrogance would indicate. Hawke fell back, frustrated. Her stamina was handicapped by her recent injuries, and already she was breathing heavily.
As she watched, Meredith swung her sword in a wide arc. The corrupted lyrium worked its magic, throwing back those who surrounded her. All but Aveline. Dazed, Hawke propped herself up on her elbows. The Knight-Commander raised her sword before her and thrust it into the stones beneath her feet. A wave of energy washed over them, rippling outwards through the Gallows, and the humming of the sword grew louder, making the hair on Hawke's nape stand up. With an almighty roar, Aveline wound up and bashed her enormous shield into Meredith's torso. Meredith stumbled backwards, but her sword had done its work. As those assembled watched in stunned horror, the gigantic slave statues crouched by the stairs came to life, jumping down with a crash that swept many off their feet.
"Maker help us!" a templar cried, and rushed to engage one of the statues. With a casual swipe of its slender arm, he was cast across the courtyard into a stone pillar, where he crumpled at its base and lay there, dazed. The other knights banded together and charged the statue, their steel swords chipping away at its bronze exterior.
Meredith had managed to wrench her blade from the cobblestones and was now commanding her troops of statues from the dais between the stairs leading to the Circle tower. She was wreathed in the same red light that had destroyed the Chantry, her blonde hair and blue eyes shining with a great and terrible beauty. Templars and mages fought side by side to bring down her minions. Hawke caught a glimpse of a bright blue spectre weaving through the melee, his Blade of Mercy felling a lesser statue in a flash of silver.
"Fall back!" Hawke heard Orsino shout over the chaos. Somehow the First Enchanter found his way to her side in the midst of the battle raging around them.
"Champion!" he gasped, his hand grasping her leather-bound forearm. The elf seemed fatigued and had a deep gash on his cheek, but seemed otherwise none the worse for wear.
"I hope you have a plan," Hawke said, a little more sharply than she meant to.
Orsino's voice gained an edge to it as he nodded and said, "Maker help us all, I do." He smiled at her, a worn, hopeless smile that chilled Hawke to the bone. "Sometimes I wonder they don't simply drown us as infants. It would almost be more merciful."
"You can't give up!" Hawke protested, grabbing Orsino by the shoulder of his robes. The elf shook his head sadly and moved away, toward Meredith, and Hawke felt the folds of his robes slip through her fingers. The sharp profile of his face was thrown into relief by the scarlet light of Meredith's blade.
"I'm not giving up," Orsino said quietly, his jaw set in a resolute line. "I'm giving in." He drew a dagger from the waist of his robes and slashed open his palm.
"No!" Hawke screamed, but she might as well have whispered for all who heard her. There was a flash of light, and then blood, so much blood Hawke nearly vomited from the rich, metallic smell that overwhelmed her senses. Orsino was drenched in it. Those who had fallen in battle began to move, their unknowing bodies sliding across the stone and forming a grisly curtain of blood and corpses, bound in a vortex around Orsino by his desperate, wicked magic. And then he was gone, and in his place stood an abomination, more wretched and grotesque than any Hawke had ever seen. With a screech, the creature advanced on Meredith, its fleshy arms and deformed body moving without grace or precision. It attacked not with strategy, but with malice, needing to feel her pain to fuel its blood-rage.
Hawke blinked and returned to the world, her mind spinning. She found the mages and templars had made short work of the animated statues – strangely enough, they worked well together when they weren't fighting amongst themselves. Hawke's companions were scattered over the battlefield but as she sought out each with her eyes, she was relieved to find they all yet lived.
A scream pierced the night, and the exhausted troops turned as one to place it. Meredith had fallen to the assault of the Harvester, her sword lying feet away from her hand, useless to her now. With her feet, she pushed herself away feebly, her injured arm curled over her chest.
Hawke broke into a jog, trying to reach the dais, to see whether Meredith had come back to herself, just as Bartrand did, moments before Varric –
"Stop!" she shouted desperately at the abomination, but with one clawed hand, the Harvester reached down and took off Meredith's head.
"Mages! Fireballs ready on three!" barked one mage. Flames sprang to life in the hands of every able mage present. "One . . . two . . . three!"
More fireballs than Hawke had ever seen flew across the Gallows and exploded. As it burned, the Harvester let out a hair-raising shriek of agony, and the acrid smell of burning flesh filled the night. Several templars and mages discreetly ran out of sight and vomited in the shadows. The flames consumed Orsino and Meredith in a shared pyre on the dais.
After a few minutes of stiff silence, the templars sheathed their swords and looked around at Hawke. The mages looked to her as well. Aveline, Fenris, and Varric moved to Hawke's side, the last supporting an ashen-faced Merrill. Hawke retrieved the lyrium blade from where it had fallen from Meredith's fingers. It felt warm and greasy to the touch. Hawke carefully wrapped it in a moth-eaten scarf she had kept and held it awkwardly. Hawke wasn't sure what to do with the sword; she only knew that it was her duty to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands again.
"Let's go, Hawke," Varric said quietly. "The show's over."
Their faces inscrutable, the templars and mages moved to allow them to leave the Gallows. Fenris slipped an arm around Hawke's waist and she sagged against him. Kirkwall was in shambles. Meredith and Orsino lay dead, Cullen had been murdered, and the Grand Cleric gravely injured.
In the days that followed, Hawke and Fenris packed up their valued belongings and left the City of Chains, telling no one their destination but promising to write. Bethany vanished within a day, bidding her sister farewell and good luck. Merrill returned to her home in the alienage and Varric could still be found in the Hanged Man, telling grand tales of the Champion's final battle to the gossip-hungry citizens of Kirkwall. The Grand Cleric regained consciousness in the Viscount's Keep, and eventually traveled to Starkhaven to recruit aid in rebuilding Kirkwall's Chantry. Aveline, the rock that had kept the Champion anchored during her years in the Free Marches, returned to her post as Guard-Captain and worked together with Seneschal Bran to put Kirkwall back together.
With his dreams of revolution and justice, Anders had done more damage than he could ever know. Hawke reflected on the events that transpired that night often in the months after her flight from Kirkwall. No matter what had happened, she and Fenris were alive and well and together, and that was enough.