Promises: Chapter Eighteen

Disclaimer: Dragon Age and all assorted characters/places/etc belong to Bioware, not me.

Fenris shifted uncomfortably. He was developing a crick in his neck, and his left leg had fallen asleep again. He stretched slowly, taking care not to draw attention to where he sat hidden within a tree.

In the clearing below him, Hawke waited with Zevran bound and gagged on the ground beside her. Though the assassin was tied up, however, he was not unarmed for he had insisted on hiding more than one dagger on his person, stating that no one would try searching a bound captive for weapons. The trio had hammered out the specifics of their plan after Zevran had volunteered to play the bait. For obvious reasons, Hawke would have to be the one to make the exchange. Fenris had worried about Hawke being vulnerable to being taken in by the slavers herself so they could avoid paying the bounty, and thus it had been decided that rather than handing Zevran over to the slavers directly, it would be safer to pass him off to an intermediary.

So it was Hawke was waiting—impatiently as was her wont—for the group of mercenaries who would act as their intermediary. That had been a battle that Fenris had lost as he didn't trust anyone, especially not with Hawke. When he had argued that mercenaries may try to capture Hawke to turn over to the slave hunters as well as the bounty, Zevran had vehemently disagreed with him, stating that there was a fine line between returning a dangerous runaway and selling a freeman into slavery. "It is simply not done, my friend," the blond elf had said. "No honest merc would do such a thing. It would be bad form to sell someone off to the slavers like that…well unless you're related, of course."

In the end, Fenris had to relent to the assassin's arguments, mainly because he couldn't come up with any alternatives. Zevran had promised to take care in selecting the band they contacted, but Fenris was still ready to intervene if Hawke should be threatened. With any luck, the first time they tried to pull off an exchange would work, but Fenris had learned not to rely on luck ever since joining forces with the elven assassin. It was far better to be prepared for any contingency. He had insisted on this repeatedly as the three companions had made their plans.

Fenris' ears perked up as he caught sound of a sizeable group coming towards them. He edged up slightly higher in the tree so he could watch Hawke more easily while still remaining in coverage. Years of training came into play as he froze in place, the only movement he made the slight rise and fall of his chest. A couple of minutes later, Hawke heard the mercenaries too, if the sudden start she gave was anything to go by.

It wasn't long after that the mercs came into sight. There were a dozen of them by Fenris' count, and he instinctively plotted out just how he would direct his attack if he had to step in to defend his mageling. He really wished that Hawke hadn't stepped out in front of Zevran to treat with the apparent leader of this band of mercenaries, a great red-headed brute of a man. It would be so much easier to protect her if the assassin remained between her and the mercs.

"You're late," Hawke announced boldly when the mercs were only a few feet away with her. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd show at all."

The leaders of the mercs snorted in response. "You're lucky we showed at all, seeing how your letter sounded too good to be true. A chance to turn ten sovereigns into at least fifty…sounds like a madcap scheme at best or a trap at worst."

Hawke rolled her eyes. "Please. I doubt you've ever had a chance to earn that much coin. Besides I sent along a copy of the bounty though it can't have been the first time you've heard of it."

"No. It's not." The merc shifted his gaze to Zevran and looked him over. "So this here is the elf that's in such demand?"

"Yes. But don't take my word for it. Doesn't he match the description included with the bounty perfectly?"

"Aye, that he does. Though it makes me wonder. Why would you turn him over to us for a mere fraction of what he's worth? Why not just turn him over yourself?"

Hawke gave the giant merc a look. "It may be hard to believe, but I'm not that stupid. I'm just one girl, good ser. If I tried to hand over this blighted elf to the slavers myself, they're likely to take me captive so as to avoid paying the bounty. If a group of mercenaries did so," Hawke shrugged her shoulders, "well somehow I don't think they'll be so keen to double cross you."

"True enough. But that does beg another question…just how did you manage to capture such a dangerous fugitive? Seeing how you're just one girl and all."

"Luck. If you want to call it that." Hawke jerked a thumb at Zevran. "This one thinks that he's more attractive and charming than he really is," she said. Fenris held back a grin, amused at her apt description of the assassin, while Zevran's face contorted into a grimace. "He thought that a few fast lines were enough to make me fall at his feet," she continued. "Needless to say, he couldn't take a hint and tried to follow me home. So I had to take things into my own hands and strike at his weak spot while I could and well…that was that. I realized he matched the description after I knocked him out. That's when I made sure he couldn't get away and then sent that letter to you."

"That seems to be a fortuitous turn of events. I would have never thought that a little girl like you could get the jump on anyone, much less a deadly fugitive like that one," the merc pointed out. Fenris mentally cursed his companions. He had told them that the story seemed implausible at best but Hawke had insisted that she could sell it and Zevran had backed her up completely. This was yet another example of why they needed to listen to him more.

Hawke batted her eyelashes sweetly at the man. "If you like, I can show you the move I used on him. So long as you don't mind the consequences of course. I've found that if you kick a man in the balls hard enough, it always sends him reeling…and if you're very lucky, it will have long term side effects so richly deserved." The grin Hawke offered up was nothing short of vicious. Fenris winced from his vantage point while below him the mercs shuffled around and coughed nervously at Hawke's suggestion.

"No need for any demonstrations," their leader assured the mageling. "So you want ten sovereigns for the captive, right?"

"Yes. It's a bargain really, considering how much you can exchange him for."

"That it is. But I'm thinking that it would be even more of a bargain if we didn't pay you." He smirked at Hawke as she took a step back. "Didn't think of that, did you?" he mocked her.

Fenris tensed, ready to strike at a moment's notice. Little did the mercs know that Hawke had a plan for such a contingency, but it wouldn't do to reveal their hand too soon. Though it went against all his training, Fenris held his position and gave Hawke a chance to convince the mercs before them that turning on her would be a very bad idea indeed.

Hawke grimaced and pulled out her belt knife, taking several steps backwards until she right by Zevran. "Oh that thought occurred to me. I'm no fool, but then neither are you. I can't hope to fight you and win. However before you reach me, I can free him—and if the bounty notice is to be believed, he's deadly even when unarmed." She gestured with her knife at Zevran. "There's enough of you that you'll probably win but not all of you will make it out unscathed. You have families to go home to, right? How many of you want to take the chance that you'll never see them again, that they'll be kicked out on the streets with no one to support them? Weigh that against the possibility of not having to work for a month once you get the bounty from the slavers."

Those words seemed to do the trick. There was some grumbling from the mercs, but the leader of the band tossed a small bag of coins at Hawke's feet, which she promptly picked up before scrambling backwards towards Fenris' tree. "Well played," he told her, a note of admiration in his voice. "There's your coin so we'll be taking the slave. And if you ever find yourself in need of a bit of company," his eyes raked over her figure, "well you know where to find me," he finished lustfully.

The mercenary leader gave a sharp bark, and two of his men came forward to take custody of the assassin. Then the band left, though not after their leader sent one last leer at Hawke. Fenris had to hand it to his mageling; she resisted the temptation to smack the redheaded idiot very well. He could tell that she was itching to do something rash by the way her fingers twitched. However, he had no time to stop and congratulate her on a job well done for now it was his turn to act.

Fenris ghosted from tree to tree, staying a safe distance behind the mercs. His part in their little plot was to keep track of their movements. The mercs marched northward at a steady paced and stopped to make camp only when the sun set.

While the mercs could rest, however, Fenris' job was not done. Now he had to go back to retrieve Hawke, who hopefully had followed orders for once. Thankfully Fenris found her in the designated spot.

"Were you able to track them?" she said when he landed before her.

A sudden urge gripped Fenris. "No. I'm afraid I lost sight of them," he said in a flat voice.

"What?" Hawke's screech made Fenris wince in pain. "You lost them? How could you—" She stopped in mid-tirade at the sight of his grin. "You're lying, aren't you?" she said accusingly.

"I believe the term you would normally apply is joking," he replied.

"Fine. It's an awfully bad one. It's like something Zev would say. He's been a bad influence on you," she said. "Just as well we'll be parting ways soon after this job of his is over."

Fenris couldn't quite read Hawke's expression. "You sound…disappointed?" he ventured.

"A little perhaps. I'll miss having someone to talk to, but Zev does tend to create a lot of complications."

"I would say the assassin lives to create complications," Fenris agreed with her.

"So are the mercenaries far away? Do you have time to eat before we go? You must be tired," Hawke said.

Fenris was weary but this was no time to rest. It was best that they get a move on. "I can eat as we go," he said. Hawke started to protest but thought the better of it. Instead she reached for their packs, handing him one along with some bread and cheese. Fenris slung the pack on to his back and then led the mageling back to where the mercs were camped.

The mercenaries handed over Zevran the next day to a group of slavers and collected the bounty as Fenris and Hawke watched while tucked away in a dense patch of bushes. Fenris carefully looked at each slaver, taking in each man's features and demeanor, in order to see if any of them were Brax.

"Any luck?" Hawke asked from where she was crouched beside him, hands at the ready to start casting if he but gave the word.

"I'm afraid not," he whispered back. "None of them have the swagger, the arrogance that a master slaver would have. But all is not lost. These are undoubtedly his underlings. They'll take the assassin back to wherever Brax is, and we'll follow them there."

"That works too, I guess. At least this way we won't have to worry about defeating the mercs as well," said Hawke.

Fenris nodded his head and then waved at her to be silent. He didn't want to tempt fate any more and risk being discovered. Hawke did bring up a valid point. They would have their hands full enough as it was with the slavers; they did not need to take down a band of skilled mercenaries as well.

The two groups parted ways after the exchanged was made with the mercs heading back south while the slavers headed in a northwesterly direction. Fenris and Hawke remained hidden for several minutes after the slavers' departure. Though Hawke had wanted to leave right away so as not to let the slavers ever leave their line of sight, Fenris insisted that they wait until he was certain there were no stragglers around to catch them leaving their hiding spot.

"Can we go yet?" Hawke asked. "We're going to lose them."

"We won't. I don't need to see them to keep track of them," Fenris replied. "You should know that. The mercs left earlier than we thought they would this morning but we still caught up to them."

"I know. It's not that I don't trust you. It's that—"

"Sitting and waiting is unnatural for you, isn't it?"

"Well I wouldn't go that far."

"I would." Fenris decided that they had lain hidden long enough. He stood up and stepped out of the bushes, shaking off the leaves that had fallen upon him. Hawke followed suit, eager to get going once more. She started to walk forward but then gave a yelp of pain. Fenris turned to see what was wrong. His mageling was back on the ground, rubbing at one foot while grumbling at how it had fallen asleep because she had been sitting on it for too long.

"If you were uncomfortable, you should have let me know," he told her.

His mageling glared at him. "I kind of thought I did," she sniffed.

He frowned. Hawke had been pushing him for the last fifteen minutes about when they would be leaving. He had thought that it was because she was impatient but now he could see that there had been more to it than that. "My apologies," he said awkwardly, hanging his head.

She shook her head from side to side. "No, no, I guess I should've been clearer. Besides it's nothing that a good round of stretching won't fix." The mageling brought her legs together in front of her. She alternated between rotating her feet in small circles and pointing her toes. After several rounds of this, Hawke felt well enough to gingerly get on her feet, pointedly ignoring the hand Fenris extended in her direction, and then continued her stretches.

Fenris scanned the ground while his mageling continued to recover. It looked as though that tracking the slavers would be far easier than tracking the mercs. The mercs had taken some precautions when it came to covering their tracks. The slave hunters, however, took no such measures. He supposed it was because the slavers had no real fear of anyone in this territory. This had been revealed to all of Antiva when Brax had the audacity to steal recruits out from under the Crows' noses. That made Fenris wonder if perhaps Zevran was as well regarded amongst the brotherhood of assassins as he claimed. While he wasn't a master assassin—Fenris understood that true masters were practically retired—the blond elf must be within the top echelon of talent amongst the Crows. That was probably also why Zevran was given so much time to complete his assignment. Of course, given that Zevran had volunteered to be bait, it was a safe bet that his time was close to running out.

"Okay, the way you've been staring at the ground for the last few minutes doesn't exactly inspire confidence in me," Hawke said from behind him.

"Hm?" Fenris cocked his head to look at her.

She gestured towards the ground. "Please tell me you can tell where they're going. I'd hate to think that we've left Zevran to the tender mercies of slavers. Which are non-existent as both you and I know."

A light lit above Fenris' head as he realized another reason why Hawke had been so insistent on leaving right away. "They won't harm him at least not while they think he's me," he said. "I didn't see the bounty notice, but I am certain that Danarius wants me back undamaged if possible. He prefers to…administer punishment directly." Fenris hoped that his mageling's insatiable curiosity wouldn't make an appearance here. He really didn't want to go into more detail about the punishments he had endured in the past.

"Oh," Hawke said. "And I guess trying to lie to a blood mage isn't exactly a good idea as they can get inside your head and all," she added hesitantly.

"Yes," he said simply and ended that particular line of discussion. It was time to move on. "It seems that the slave hunters are headed more east than north. If you're ready, it's time for us to go," he said.

Hawke nodded her head and then scrambled back to the bushes to pick up their packs. He took the heavier one from her and then strode forward with his mageling at his side. As they walked, Fenris kept a close eye on the path ahead of them to make sure that he didn't lose the trail. Thankfully his initial assessment was correct, and he had no trouble in finding the slavers' trail. The only real difficulty lay in determining just how far back to stay behind the slavers. If they stayed too close to the slavers, they ran the risk of being discovered by any slaver who just happened to look over his shoulder. If they were too far away, on the other hand, they could be out of position when the slavers met up with Brax. In the end, Fenris settled on a happy medium, staying out of sight but still within striking distance.

Author's note: Thanks so much to everyone who left a review. It's always fun to read what you all think of this fic so far.