Chapter Two
9:34 Dragon
Kirkwall, Viscount's Keep
He's fast.
It was all she had time to think before a sword the size of her came down – just an inch from her right shoulder. Hawke stumbled to the left and kicked a miasmic flask at him.
That should stun him for a moment, she thought, running behind the nearest column and pressing her back against the cool marble. Hawke unstoppered a health potion with her teeth and downed it quickly. She felt the small injuries she'd incurred fade away, though they were still sore.
A roar came from somewhere behind her. On the other side of the column, right where she'd left him.
The Arishok hadn't been stunned at all.
Balls.
He was going to charge.
She knew he was going to charge.
Hawke shifted her position around the column slightly, to her left, hoping that he'd be too distracted to notice that she'd moved.
The air whistled around him as he surged forward toward the right side of the column. Hawke shifted further around to her left. Two large swords wound up cleaving the air where Hawke used to be as two small daggers embedded themselves in the Arishok's back, right above the shoulder blades.
The Arishok didn't even flinch as Hawke took her daggers out of his flesh and began to run, half-stumbling. If she could make it to the other column...
He's fast.
It was all she had time to think before a sword the size of her stabbed right through her stomach.
Until this moment, Hawke hadn't known what the word "pain" really meant. The sharp sword threw the rest of the world out of focus – she couldn't see anything, hear anything, make sense of anything... except the pain.
She began to hear noise – people were shouting, screaming – someone (or maybe several someones) was calling her name.
She felt the sword being lifted up with her still on it.
The Arishok moved his sword to a slow beat. The three of them – Hawke, the Arishok, and the sword – were moving together in a sharp, blood-red dance.
He threw her off the sword.
She landed a few feet away from him.
From the floor, she could just make out that he was walking slowly toward her. He was a predator, looking down upon his prey.
This was it, then.
The thought didn't fill her with the fear it should have.
You great grey git,she thought. You've been fighting me, to the death, you said – and you don't know. You never even suspected.
He hadn't stopped walking toward her, but the pace was slow, agonizingly slow. Or was it time that was slowing? Trying to give her another few "precious" seconds of life?
You fool. You blind fool.
He was just a few steps away now. Wasn't her life supposed to flash before her eyes or something?
You can't kill me.
Hawke looked the Arishok straight in the eyes. She defied him. She would defy them all. What did it matter if he were the one to stop her heart from beating?
I'm already dead.
The Arishok gave a small, cold smile. He approved of her. It seemed he liked the spitfires, the ones who fought with everything they had.
Fenris had told her this about the Qunari. He had been right.
That bastard.
With one sweeping motion, Hawke grabbed her only combustion grenade out of her pocket. She hurled the small sphere at the Arishok.
The smoke, combined with his surprise, stunned the Arishok. It would only last a few seconds.
It was all Hawke needed.
Forcing herself to her feet – she never knew how – she ran to the column on the other side of the the throne room and positioned herself on the far side of it. She downed her last health potion and felt some of her favorite organs begin to repair themselves.
The Arishok growled from the other side of the room. Hawke could have laughed.
Here we are again, she thought with a grim smile.
Hawke needed to think quickly. She knew she didn't have the energy to perform the column trick again. The Arishok would likely come to the same conclusion, if he hadn't already. She was injured; he had a few cuts. She was slowed now; he was as fast as ever. Miasmic flasks didn't work on him.
Hawke was out of grenades, health potions, and time.
She needed to even the playing field somehow. She had the smoke bombs she used to help her backstab, but those wouldn't do much of anything. She also had...
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small black vial. Her favorite poison seller, Tomwise, had given this to her a few days before – everyone needs an edge sometimes, right? – and told her to use it sparingly, only in the most dire of circumstances.
Hawke was pretty sure this would count.
She coated her daggers with the black sludgy liquid as the Arishok roared, signaling his intention to charge again.
Come on, she thought. Hawke was ready for him.
As he rushed forward, she stepped out from behind the column – directly in front of him this time. Throwing down one of her smoke bombs, she shifted right behind him and stabbed with all her strength.
Her push combined with his momentum made him stumble. The Arishok was thrown off-balance and would be vulnerable as he tried to regain it.
Hawke wished she had done that on purpose.
She pressed on, slicing, stabbing, cutting; They weren't deep or too damaging – but she would do anything to get the poison into his system. The more there was, the more likely it was to work quickly.
The Arishok swung around wildly, his sword parallel to the ground, trying to slice Hawke in half or force her to move away.
Instead, she ducked under the blade – thank you, Fenris, for your instruction on how to handle large swords – and her left dagger found the Arishok's heart.
Their eyes met – and there was no hate or resentment in either Hawke's or the Arishok's. They were just two people frozen for a moment in time. Two people caught on opposite sides, but both fighting for what they believed in. Two people fighting each other, but each of them respected and honored the other.
They understood each other perfectly in that instant.
He stumbled backward onto the stairs leading to the Viscount's throne. Hawke nearly reached a hand forward to help him up, her voice about to say I'm sorry, I was trying to kill you but I never wanted you to die.
"One day, we shall return,"he said.
And he breathed his last.
The Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter ran in, clearly expecting a battle to still be raging. Instead, they found the Qunari leaving, their leader bleeding on the Viscount's Orlesian rug, and Hawke, clearly the victor, but looking oddly sad about it.
"Is it... over?" the Knight-Commander asked, sounding confused. The tone would have made Anders laugh if he'd been there to hear it.
"It's over," Hawke replied, turning away from her fallen enemy and looking the Knight-Commander in the face. Hawke's eyes were cold now – the eyes of a dead woman.
"Well done," the Knight-Commander said as the nobles cheered. "It appears Kirkwall has a new Champion."
The Champion crumpled. Her wounds were more grievous than the health potion could have possibly healed. She fell to the floor.
She hears shocked noises a thousand miles away. They're too loud. Her head hurts. Her eyes are open, but she can't see.
"Give the Champion some air!" the Knight-Commander yells over the din. "Captain Aveline, help me escort these nobles out of the Keep."
Loud, rumbling footsteps sound like thunder as people leave. They mutter among themselves: poor girl, she saved us, fighting the Qunari, how shocking, she saved us, poor Dumar, who will lead us now, she saved us.
"I am no healer, but I can try to stabilize her," the First Enchanter says quietly. His robes rustle as he kneels next to her.
Blue-white magic tingles over her wounds.
"They don't hurt. You don't have to do anything, they don't hurt."
"You're in shock, serah – oh, I'm sorry, Champion," his voice smiles, "but don't worry. You'll be right as rain soon enough."
"I'll go get Blondie," Varric's voice suggests.
"Anders? But – Varric, no, don't –"
But he's already gone.
"It's all right," the First Enchanter whispers. "They won't do anything to your friends."
"Are they all right? Please, Maker, let them be all right."
"Would one of you come here, please, and talk to the Champion?" the First Enchanter calls – loud, very loud ringing in her head.
A few clinking noises and a voice with a Starkhaven accent is beside her.
"That was very brave of you, Hawke," he says. "Your family would be proud, I think."
"The others?"
"Aveline, Varric, Isabela, and I are all fine. Varric went to get Anders –"
"Merrill?"
"The Qunari didn't look to be troubling the Alienage too much. They had too many elven supporters for them to bother her, I think. She's probably fine."
"And... Fenris?"
"I'm not sure, Hawke," Sebastian apologizes, his voice soft. "Remember? You haven't seen him for a few weeks."
She remembers now. She was so angry at him when she was fighting, and before today.
He'd yelled at her, pushed her, almost killed her, left after sleeping with her, and then refused to talk to her – and she had been angry – so, so angry – at him for all of it.
She's shocked, then, to discover that she's not angry anymore. On the contrary, she feels guilty for having ever been angry with him in the first place.
She has to tell him. He has to know.
The fear of dying that she hadn't felt during the battle came on strongly now. It hits her like a Qunari fist to the face. (And she knows exactly how that feels now.)
"I know I have no right to ask you for anything..." she begins.
"You saved many lives today, Hawke. You have every right," Sebastian chuckles quietly.
"Fenris... will you..?"
"I'll find him. I promise," he says.
"Thank you." She sighs in relief.
He leaves. Isabela kneels beside her now, holding her hand but not talking.
"First Enchanter?" Hawke asks.
"Yes, Champion?" he asks her, still casting healing spells.
"Do you speak Tevinter?"