It wasn't yet dawn when the men arrived at the north gate, but Theodore had been too restless to sleep the night before. The man at his side—Louis Darrow, who was less of a guardsman and more of a friend—looked bleary-eyed and let out a jaw-cracking yawn as they waited.
Louis shifted from foot to foot, but Theo remained dead still with a grim look in his eyes that he had not been without for years. The men were dressed in dark, casual clothing that did not give away their wealth or purpose, but there was a regality to Theo's stature that Louis noted he had not always had. It was almost funny how adversity could bring out a man's strength, but the cost had been too high. Warmth and laughter had been replaced by stone.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked quietly.
Theo did not look at him as he answered. "Yes."
"What if it isn't there?"
"Then I'll woo the Avvar some other way." Theo remained as impassive as a stone.
Louis blew out a breath in frustration. "Can't we just…" he trailed off, running a hand through his hair.
Theo's eyes narrowed, and Louis realized that his friend's taut control was slipping. "Can't we just, what? Give up? Is that what you were going to suggest?" he snapped. "I will have the Avvar, and I will oust Bann Stafford from my lands. I will not stop until I've removed Stafford's head from his shoulders, or until he's hacked off mine. I know how badly he wants to add it to the rest."
Louis looked away from the wild rage and grief on his friend's face lest his own show through. The Footes of Snowscrest—and the Darrows who served them—had been slaughtered when Bann Stafford took the opportunity to seize their distant bannorn in the chaos of the Blight years prior. Scant few of had escaped, far too few to mount an assault against the opposing bannorn. They needed an army: the Avvar who frequented their mountains.
His stomach roiling with conflicted thoughts, Louis's eyes fell on the two women approaching them. Thank the Maker. Their arrival was a blessed distraction.
"Are we interrupting something?" Maeva asked far too cheerily for such an early hour in the day.
"No," Theo said, his face turning stony once more. His eyes trailed over both women and nodded with approval. "You packed light. Good."
"Don't mistake me, ser; I can take on much bigger loads than this," Maeva grinned. Adara closed her eyes briefly in a bid for patience, and Louis managed a smirk. Theo only turned away and beckoned them towards the gates. "Come on. I want to make good time."
They did make good time. The weather remained mild and clear, which left their path mostly unhindered when they had to venture off the North Road and make for the rugged coastline. The air grew damper as they traveled north, and Maeva began to imagine that she could smell salt in the air.
Theo pushed them onwards like a man possessed, urging them onwards when the sun was barely peeking over the horizon and only stopping when Louis insisted that it was too dark to progress. He ignored Maeva's constant complaining, and Adara said nothing as usual.
Their camp was not cheerful. Maeva's eyes slid from one grim, silent companion to the next, and the dwarf rolled her eyes. Everyone was so damn serious all the time. She fished a flask of whiskey out of her pack and took several long draughts before deciding that the social situation was grim enough to merit sharing.
She nudged Adara until the elf reluctantly took the flask and took a dainty sip. Maeva snorted. "That's no way to drink." Adara only smiled and passed the flask along.
"Thank you," Louis said, raising the flask to the dwarf before drinking from it.
Maeva shrugged. "S'not right for folks to travel together without sharing a drink and a few secrets. So tell me, then: what's in this old Avvar tomb that you boys want so badly?"
"I don't see how that's your business," Theo answered icily.
Maeva was used to icy, and she ignored the tone. "If you wanted mindless muscle, you went to the wrong place. You went to Kay, and you got specialty help: us. That means you have to deal with our questions."
"Our?" Adara piped up in that quiet, dry way of hers. Maeva ignored her too.
"The deal was that we get to take as much of whatever is in that crypt that we can carry—except for one thing, a single mysterious object. I want to know what it is," Maeva said, watching her fingers drumming on the whiskey flask rather than meeting Theo's eyes. "Why not tell us? Way I see it is, we'll get so much loot that we won't even care about whatever it is you're after. This deal is pretty heavily tipped in our favor, and I'd like to know why. You don't get to reach your mid-twenties without learning to ask questions." It was an old joke and not a very funny one, that Maeva used all the time, but it had a ring of truth to it when one considered just how many bodies turned up in Denerim's alleyways overnight.
"It's a sword," Theo answered shortly. "Just a sword."
"I could've recommended a good blacksmith in Denerim if that's all you were after."
"Legend says it's the blade of Korth the Mountain-Father, one of the ancient gods of the Avvar. Only a handful of mortal warriors have ever wielded it, their stories passed down through each Avvar generation. Anyone who holds it is believed to be worthy in the eyes of Korth," Theo said, stretching out long legs in front of him as he leaned back against the trunk of a tree.
Even Maeva looked a bit surprised by that answer, and she cocked an eyebrow. "So you want to be the king of a bunch of dirty mountain men? Again, I could've arranged that for you in Denerim. The Pearl caters to a lot of tastes."
Louis snorted, and Theo glared at him before answering tightly: "I need their friendship. That's all you need to know."
"Sure. I get it," Maeva said. Her tone was still teasing, but the glance she exchanged with Adara indicated that the women understood more than Theo likely assumed. One didn't specialize in shady, odd work for nobility without learning that it all came down to conquest and riches in the end in one way or another. It wouldn't matter much to them in the end what the lordling did with his old grave-robbed sword anyway.
Louis rose, levering himself up with his hands on his knees. "I think I'll get a bit more firewood."
Maeva bounded up. "Think I'll go with you. Even a big, strong man could use an extra hand now and then, yeah?"
The dwarf had that predatory look in her eyes that Adara knew very well, and she sighed quietly. Louis and Maeva retreated into the gloom, leaving Adara and Theo to resume their silent vigil around the campfire.