The next room was a file room that the operation had converted into a makeshift guard barracks where six Tevinter soldiers were fast asleep on hastily assembled cots. They hadn't even bothered to station one by the door. It was truly amazing how much the humans relied on the elves just lying down and taking it. Then again, the more Ten saw of the world, the more she realized how many of her people truly did just lie down and take it. Can I blame them? Look what standing up got me… what it got Nelaros…
Moving as quietly as possible, Ten demonstrated to Shianni how to slice straight down so the vocal cords would be severed before the jugular. Shianni nodded, for some reason not having any sort of issue with this. Evidently, it was just hacking off body parts that gave her pause. The two women slid their blades silently into one throat after another, making nary a sound, alerting nobody to their presence. The blood pooled on the floor, inches deep, by the time they were done.
"I liked these boots," Shianni grumbled.
"I'll buy you some new ones," said Ten.
"Can I get the nice ones with the steel ballkicking toes?"
"Sure thing," said Ten. They went further in, down a long hallway and into the main storeroom closest to the dock. She felt her stomach drop. Lit dimly by the moon, which had risen sometime between when she had entered Mallie Lee's flat and now, the place was lined with cages like the one they'd found the girl Mithlani in. She saw her dad first, and Soris. Yereni Kovalis, a fisherwoman, was in one at the far end of the room. Her husband has been Loghain's valet for years. Some fucking nerve. She did not, however, see any of the others.
She went to Soris first, knowing he was likely the best equipped for a fight. He was awake sitting in the corner of the cage, his knees at his chest. "This is the worst cell I've ever gotten you out of," she said, "And that's saying something."
"Ten!" he exclaimed as he saw her.
"Quite a reunion, huh," she chuckled, opening the lock. She pressed the handle of her other hatchet into his hand, "How many of them are there?"
"Six guards," said Soris.
"Only six? Make that zero," said Ten, grinning.
"Ah, that explains the blood dripping from your feet," Soris said, "There's a ship docked out there. I think that's where they took the others. It has a full crew as far as I can tell, but most of them left sometime yesterday and haven't come back. But… Shianni, that funny little man who said he was a doctor?"
"What about him?" Shianni asked.
"I think he's a magister," Soris said.
"Fuck," Ten cursed. As much as she did not have great feelings about Fereldan and the rest of the southern nations keeping their mages sequestered, she knew somewhat that the plight of her people in the Imperium was largely in part due to the unregulated magic that the mages there were permitted to wield. Whoever was behind this probably packing much more of a punch even than UIdred, "I was hoping to get out of here in one piece. Oh well."
"Uncle Cyrion!" Soris shouted.
"What is it lad?" her fathers voice came from the other end of the room.
"Your favorite daughter's here to save us."
"Teneira?"
She followed his voice to where her dad was standing, gripping the bars of his own cage. Her hands shook as she opened the lock, the door swung open, and she was in her father's arms. Though she couldn't be sure, given the moonlight, she thought that the patches of his hair that had been gray had gone white, and the dark patches had gone gray. He'd certainly lost weight since the last time he'd held her.
"My girl," he said into her hair, "My girl. You've come."
"Of course I have, Dad," she said, "Are you hurt?"
"No," he said, "They were gentle with us, as long as we didn't fight."
And of course you didn't fight, did you, old man, she thought. But, instead, she said, "Well that's good news then. Where are the others?"
"There's a boat docked out there on the river," he said, "At least there was before. I haven't seen anything to indicate it's gone."
"Good," she said, "Looks like I nipped this one in the bud."
He nodded, "Do you have any weapons?"
She chuckled, "No, Dad, I fought my way in here with a rolling pin."
"No, I mean for me."
"You, Dad? Haven't seen you wield anything more sinister than a chisel."
"A chisel would do," he said, "I've… had about enough of this, my girl. I fear you and your mother may have been right all along. They won't stop unless we make them stop."
She nodded, "Back in the hall, door to the right, Shianni and I just took care of the guards. Their gear should be in there. Grab what you can. Don't mind the blood."
He sighed, "All right."
"And come right back," she said.
"I will."
Ten moved on to the next occupied cage, housing Yereni Kovalis. She opened the lock with more ease, and the door swung open.
"Do you want to help us free the poor sods on the boat?" asked Ten, "You don't have to if you don't want to."
"Let me at them," the fishwife growled, "I will tear them limb from limb with my bare hands if I have to."
"You won't have to," said Ten, seeing her father return, laden with all sorts of nasty weaponry, "Take your pick."
Armed to the teeth, the five of them crept out onto the dock, up the gangway, and onto the ship. It was a large vessel, and Ten realized it would command a large crew. Let's hope Soris was right about how many of them are carousing on shore now. There was a watchman on deck, his lantern held high on a pole, who tried raised the alarm and run at them, but was cut down by an arrow through the eye. Ten looked behind her for where it had come from, and she was gobsmacked to see Cyrion lowering a longbow nearly as tall as he was.
"Where'd you learn how to do that?" Ten asked, totally baffled.
Cyrion scoffed, "I had a life before you were born believe it or not. Though I'm glad to see my eyes have not failed me in my dotage."
"Well shit, I'll have to make sure we both live through the night, I'm not going to my pyre not knowing that story," said Ten.
"They're belowdecks!" Soris called. He had yanked a hatch open and descended into the smelly darkness of the ship's hold. Ten followed, and Shianni, while Cyrion and Yereni stood by the gangplank with her harpoon. Neither weapon would be of any use in the close quarters of the hold, after all.
They found three sailors asleep in their hammocks. The rest of the crew quarters were empty.
"Do we kill them?" Shianni asked, "They're just sailors."
"Sailors on a slave ship," Soris said, "Fuck em."
"Yeah," Shianni conceded, and thrust a knife up into one of their necks through the sailcloth hammock. Ten put her ax in the head of another. The third put up a fight, but Soris swung the hatchet, taking off several fingers, and then his head.
They found the rest of their unfortunate neighbors in the hold, by the bow. They were shackled together by wrists and ankles, and there was barely room for them to lie flat. Ten took her ax to the wooden crossbar the chains were fastened to, and pulled it loose.
"What's going on?"
Ten recognized the voice. It belonged to Tirin Iovanas, Don Cangrejo's longtime footman. I wonder what the Don will do when he finds out about this… She shuddered to think of it. The Crows she had gifted him in chains had wound up buried alive, nourishing the grape vines in his courtyard.
"We're getting you out," she called.
"Is that Teneira?" called out another voice, "It's me, Nadera!"
"Good, you're all right," Ten called, pulling the chain from where it was looped through all of their shackles, gently, so as not to injure them, "We found your daughter Mithlani. She's run home to your husband."
"They took Mithlani? But she's only a little… give me a fucking knife."
"Who else is in there?" Shianni called.
"They've got Enlir and the Aierkos sisters. Eionwin Sharhani's here too," Nadera called.
"Ten," a familiar voice said, "It's me, Anton. I'm here."
"Not for long," Ten called encouragingly as her stomach flip-flopped, "Are you free yet? I just got the end of the chain. Can you walk?"
"Yes," Nadera called, "Irons are still on my wrists and ankles but I can walk."
"Come towards my voice!"
Soris stationed himself by the ladder to the deck, and Shianni between them and so they ushered the erstwhile prisoners up to the deck above. Ten scrambled up the ladder last and saw that they had missed at least two sailors and… the bald motherfucker wearing mage robes. Shianni quickly moved the newly freed behind the open door to the hatch as energy crackled between the magister's fingers, and for the first time, fear wound its way around the anger and outrage in Ten's heart.
"So you're the little elfin maiden who's caused all this trouble," he said, "The lone Grey Warden. The Champion of Redcliffe." In the moonlight, Ten could barely make out his features, which her mind turned into something monstrous.
"You forget the Vengeful Bride," said Ten.
"Ah, yes, that too," the magister said, "You should hear how the king rants about you. Borderline obsession, I'd say. Can't be healthy."
"Ferelden has no king," said Ten.
"You know full well who I'm speaking of," the magister said, "The man's taken leave of his senses, if you ask me, though I suppose you didn't."
"No, keep talking," said Ten, "So Teyrn Loghain called me the lone Grey Warden?"
"Several times," said the magister, "Said he's been chasing you over hill and dale for months now."
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement. Anton had scrambled over the bulwark on the starboard side and was climbing sideways towards the bow. He's trying to get behind him. All right. She resolved to keep the magister talking until Anton could complete whatever it was he was up to, "Tell me more about the state of his mind."
"Well, insane though he may be, he was right that this would draw you out of whatever hole you've been in," said the magister, "Though, to my own chagrin, I believed him when he said we would sail from this land before you realized what happened."
"This whole thing was just to bait me into making a move?" Ten exclaimed.
"Like I said, taken leave of his senses. But who was I to refuse such a bargain?"
"And what was the bargain, exactly?"
"I get fifty elves to sell back in Minrathas, including your father, uncle, and all of your cousins, for coppers on the sovereign, he culls and intimidates a population that has been a thorn in his side, and he baits you into putting yourself within his grasp."
"So where are his men to arrest me, if that's what I've done?" Ten asked.
"I didn't say it was a good plan," said the magister, "I have no interest in whatever squabbles you savages have with each other. Though I have made a fatal error in trusting that mans' estimation of the timeline and may well have bitten off more than I can chew. I imagine you've already slaughtered my people."
"I do love a slaughter," sait Ten, "Are you really so short of downtrodden souls in the Imperium that you come nipping at the heels of us free folk?"
"I made a bargain with your king. No more and no less," the magister said, "I'll never understand why you people are so obsessed with 'freedom.' You'd rather work your fingers to the bone for silvers a day, living at the ends of the earth in an unimportant province that's pretending to be a nation. And you have to pay rent on top of it!"
"Ferelden has no king," Ten repeated.
"Well, it will soon, and if you hate him even a fraction of how much he hates you," the magister said, "I imagine you might want to prevent that."
"I might," Ten acknowledged.
"So I have a proposition for you," he said, "I am in possession of several documents that would confirm the… bargain that the man who would be king has made with me. Surely the peers of the land could not look away were this to become public. After all, without your people, what passes for an economy in this cesspit grinds to a halt. You let this ship leave port, with me on it, in one piece, and you shall have them."
Ten was silent for a long moment. "I've considered your offer," Ten said, "And I have a counterproposal. You give me the documents, and your right hand to send to Teyrn Loghain as a present. The rest of you walks away, fucks off back to the Imperium and never comes to my city again."
"What did I say about amputations?" Shianni hissed
"It's only a hand," called Ten, ignoring her cousin, "In exchange for your life. I'm sure whatever blood mages you pal around with back home could grow you a new one."
"I'm not a foolish man," the mage said, "I know I'm hopelessly outnumbered. But if that is the bargain you insist on, know that I will take as many of you down with me as I can."
"Well, then, I suppose it'll have to be your head," Ten called. She started walking towards him, slowly and menacingly, hand on her ax. She felt her hair stand up as he channeled electricity into her, her heart skipped a beat, then another, her muscles seized, and she fell to the deck, struggling to breathe.
Her father loosed an arrow. A wall of ice went up between them and it fell uselessly to the deck. Ten rose, finally, racked with pain, but in control of her limbs once again, and continued her slow advance. Behind the mage, she saw Anton clamber back over the bulwark and advance slowly towards the mage.
He tried fire then. She kept advancing. A blast of arctic air. She kept her breathing slow, did not cry out, and kept moving. The mage threw his head back, chanting another spell. This one would probably be it for her, if he loosed it.
He did not. Anton threw the heavy iron chains that had bound him in the hold of that ship around the magister's neck, and pulled. The spell died in the air. Ten dropped to her knees, hand on her chest, gasping and wheezing, not sure what damage he'd already done. Cyrion rushed up to her, put his arm about her shoulder, and helped her to rise.
"Can I kill him? Or do you want to play with him first?" Anton shouted.
"Wasn't me in the hold of that ship," Ten said, "Do whatever you damn well please. Better rip his tongue out first, though."
"Not worth it," Anton sighed. He gave a great tug on the chain, and the sound of neckbones cracking echoed through the night.
"Everyone in one piece?" called Soris. One of his sleeves had been burned away, and the arm beneath was raw and red, but seemed functional.
"Everyone that matters," Nadera confirmed.
"Take everything that was on him," said Ten, "Clean out the captain's cabin. Any paperwork, I don't care what language it's in or if it looks important, take it. And give me that chain, Anton. Yereni, do you know when the tide goes out?"
"Little past midnight," called the fisherwoman, "It'll turn in about an hour."
"If we unmoor this ship and give it a shove will it drift out into the harbor on its own?"
"Probably," Yereni replied, "Why?"
"I need to put some bait in the water. Nadera, can you see the harbor from the palace?"
"Yes," Nadera, who had, at one point, scrubbed the royal privies, said, "On a clear night. It's a new moon, though."
"Then we'll have to make it a bit more visible. Let's get to searching, don't have all that long."
A little after midnight, the citizens of Denerim, well those who were still awake and thus likely up to no good, were treated to an usual sight. A ship with all of its sails ablaze came drifting down the river and out into the port. It was clearly unmanned, for it moved lazily, this way and that, and the harbormistress, furious at being awoken in the middle of the night, scrambled all the hands she could find to make sure it didn't drift right into the other ships anchored in the bay and set them alight as well.
When a gang of twelve longshoremen finally rowed out and made it to the deck of the burning ship with buckets and axes, they saw, to their dismay, seven corpses hung in chains, dangling from the topmast, swinging lazily about with the motion of the ship, blood dripping in an intricate spiral pattern onto the deck. To the bowsprit was lashed an eighth, this one headless, but wearing the colorful robes of a magister of the Tevinter Imperium, which fluttered in the wind.
"That's about the most fucked up thing I've seen this week," one longshoreman, dusty fellow by the name of Erenric Ballish commented.
"Who do you suppose they pissed off?" asked one coworker.
"I don't know," Erenric said, "But I hope I never manage to cross them. Come on, let's get this fire out."