Hey all, sorry for the lack of chapters lately! Reviews help me write ;P And also, please let me know if there's anything wrong with the chapters, etc! I don't have a beta at the moment (she's a bit busy!), so there may be mistakes. Hope everyone is enjoying the story so far! I intend to see this through to the end, I swear. (Although it's shaping up to be long. In my head anyway!) So... enough babbling! I hope you like this chapter, and please, please, please, review! PS There is a Princess Bride quote in here somewhere ;D PPS I will not be providing translations, as Hawke doesn't understand Orlesian. But please feel free to look the words up on google translate, or similar! :)
O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O
Carroll drifted in and out of conciousness – the only thing he managed to register when he was awake was that is was just as dark as when he wasn't. He didn't know where he was, but he was moving – or rather wherever he was trapped was moving. He struggled to sit up, and found his hands and feet bound uncomfortably, and walls on every side of him. Panicked, he banged on the sides of... whatever it was he was trapped in, only to be hit with a holy smite for his efforts.
Templars... Maker, please let it be Sebastian's guard and no anyone else.
His hopes were smashed by the sounds of two men laughing unkindly, then speaking to each other in Orlesian.
"Il est un fils de pute entrain. Je veux un tour sur lui avant d'y arriver." The other man tutted disapprovingly at the other's words.
"Vous êtes dégoûtant, Henri." There was a pause.
"Oui, je suis. Mais pourquoi dites-vous cela? J'ai entendu dire que vous les foutre aussi. Honte à les gaspiller, Eugène!" Henri replied, seemingly unsure of whatever he had said.
Eugène laughed, although it was not a pretty sound.
"C'est de Chevalier-Capitaine Eugène à vous, Henri. Peu importe. Pour répondre à votre question, je n'ai pas rompu mes vœux. Pas une seule fois." Another awkward pause, then Henri spoke again, in a nasally, wheedling tone, much like the one Gamlen used when he wanted something from Carroll.
"Oui, Chevalier-Capitaine, je m'en excuse. Il est une rumeur, mais j'ai entendu dans le cercle."
"C'est en partie vrai, Henri. J'ai pris les mages, plus d'une fois. Mais il est de leur montrer leur place. Pour leur montrer que je suis leur patron. Garder le monde à l'abri de mages et des mages sûrs d'eux-mêmes est de savoir comment mes vœux travail. Lorsque je les prends, même par la force, je suis au service du Maker. Rappelez-vous que."
"...Oui, Chevalier-Capitaine."
There was silence for a while after that, and due to blood loss, exhaustion, and sheer terror, Carroll fainted again.
O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O
It had been three hours now since Hawke had been handed over to the Orlesian templars, badly wounded and unconscious. The templars had had an hour's head start, and had covered most of their tracks, perhaps suspecting a rescue attempt by rebellious apostates and mage sympathisers. Nevertheless, Sebastian was gaining on them, flanked by a team of six of his most trusted guardsmen, as well as Lieutenant Brear.
He had thought that he would be happy that the man who unwittingly helped blow up the Chantry was about to face justice, but was well aware that with Hawke's new status as a blood mage, he would soon be slaughtered, most likely without a trial. The man had sheltered, bedded, and aided a known fugitive, spared said fugitive when he murdered the hundreds of helpless people in the Chantry that day, and even attempted a plot on Sebastian's life.
But despite all this, despite the fact that up until less than a day ago he had been sure that he hated Carroll Hawke... Despite all those things, he could not allow an innocent child to be harmed, whether its parents were maleficars or not.
Lost in thought, Sebastian turned sharply at the shout of one of his men, signalling that they had found something and were ready to start tracking the templars again. Sebastian only hoped they arrived in time.
O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O
Carroll was awoken with another holy smite, this one somehow more aggressive than the first, leaving him feeling physically drained and ill. He flinched as there was a loud creaking sound, and suddenly sunlight poured into the box, and his vision was blinded. Before he could react, he was dragged out of his prison, briefly registering it was a coffin with a sort of detached horror, before he was thrown on the ground. He squnted in the sunlight, and made out the blurry outline of a templar stood in front of him. There were at least three other templars he could see around the cart he had been on, perhaps more. The templar took his sword from its scabbard, and Hawke was sure that he would strike him down where he stood.
"Please." he croaked out, voice cracked from dehydration. "Please, I need to live." This seemed to amuse the other templars, although the man that stood in front of him's eyes burnt even angrier, if that were possible.
"Yes? What would that be, then?" The man had a cruel, cold voice – it matched his demeanour and his eyes. He continued before Hawke had a chance to answer. "What could it be that a mage finds so important? True love? A girl of surpassing beauty and faithfulness, perhaps, tucked away somewhere? Or perhaps a man? Another mage, a murderer, maleficar, abomination?" He roared the last few words, and despite himself, tears ran down Hawke's cheeks. He was right, after all. He should have known...
Suddenly he was slapped, hard with a gauntleted hand, and there was a crunch as his nose broke, spraying blood all over the "Chevalier-Capitaine"'s armour, for Hawke now recognised the man who had spoken earlier.
"Pay attention when your betters are talking to you!" the Knight-Captain barked. He noticed the blood on his armour, and tore a strip from Carroll's ragged robes, to wipe it off, leaving a gaping hole in the front of his robe. Hawke instinctively went to cover his chest from the templars, before remembering his chest was bound. Knight-Captain Eugène's eyes narrowed, and for a moment Hawke froze. Had the templar noticed? Did he know?
But it seemed not, as the Knight-Captain grabbed him by his long hair and dragged him to his knees, bending down to face level with him. "Where is the abomination, mage? Where is Anders?"
"...Dead." Hawke choked out through a mouthful of blood and tears. The man growled, and easily picked the malnourished man up, hefting him over his shoulder.
"I am taking the mage for questioning. Do not disturb us." The other templars were quiet, but as their Knight-Captain left, Hawke could hear snickers and quiet cat-calls behind them. This didn't look good...
O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O
They weren't far away now, having found discarded food and footprints left behind by the templars. They were hidden round a twist of the road in the forest – the perfect ambushplace, for them anyway. The only question now was how to go about rescuing him without arousing suspicion of the templars. Maker, what if they had already made a phylactery? They would have to find and destroy that. So the shadow- sneaking and trickery was most likely out of the question, unless by some miracle the phylactery was out in the open instead of around a templar's neck. It was looking like they would have to go on the offensive after all... But Sebastian really didn't want to go against five well-trained, heavily armoured templars, not to mention the fact this could cause some serious trouble between Starkhaven and the Chantry. Damnit, they should have made a plan!
An arrow whizzed past Sebastian's ear, and he jerked out of his thoughts, rolling to the side instinctively. He noticed Emma Brear near him, and shouted to her.
"Lieutenant! With me!" Together they quickly assessed the situation. They were surrounded by bandits. The templars may be surrounded as well, but Sebastian and his men didn't appear to have been noticed by the templars yet. They could play this to their advantage.
Lieutenant Brear seemed to have had the same idea, and she nodded to the bandit's arrow in the tree behind Sebastian. Light suddenly dawning on him, Sebastian grabbed the arrow, and unhooked one of his traditional arrows with Starkhaven fletchlings. Putting the arrow into his bow, Sebastian took aim, and fired – a templar went down like a tonne of bricks.