XII: An Arrest, of a Sort
"What do you see?" Hawke whispered beside Aveline as both women huddled behind a particularly large boulder. Aveline held up one finger on her free hand, her sword still in its sheath, then leaned out slowly with her shield up. The wood opened before her, an empty clearing of grass and shrubs standing against a sheer tan cliff face of the Wounded Coast. She could see a cave mouth open before them, one of the many gashes that gave the Wounded Coast its name. This one was smaller than most, perhaps big enough for two people to enter abreast, though the entrance was obscured by boulders scattered before it.
Aveline's observations were interrupted by the tell-tale flit of an arrow cutting through the air. She reacted on instinct, dropping her head behind her shield. The clatter of wood on stone sounded on the rock-face beside her now sheltered head as an arrow spun away. She ducked back behind the boulder before their attacker could loose again.
Hawke knelt beside her, expecting. "Well?"
"A great deal of nothing. He's hidden himself well," Aveline answered, wondering how they had even gotten into this mess.
After they had finished their misadventures upon the mountain, blood magic and all, she had gone with Hawke and Carver to see the Keeper once more. This time Aveline was present to ask the Dalish leader if her Clan had seen any humans moving through the forest. Before she could provide the Keeper with her description of her quarry, the woman had stopped her.
'I do not know if it is who you seek,' she had said. 'But my chief hunter has reported to me of humans skirting the wood towards the coast. Speak to Silael if you would know more.'
And so she had, eager to be away as the Keeper cast her magic first on Carver, soothing his battered body. Despite her partial familiarity with Hawke's magic (the woman only used it sparingly now – in fact, Aveline was unsure if she had even seen the elder Hawke do anything magical after they had reached Kirkwall together), she found its direct presence unsettling at best. The guardswoman found herself grateful in a way for Hawke's constant avoidance of her power, as often as it may have helped them in a scrape. Though Aveline could see magic's usefulness both as an idea and from its effects, she still could not fight that discomfort she always felt at its sight.
Wesley would not have approved of it. He had almost insisted we apprehend Bethany in the middle of the Blight… 'An Apostate is one who's intent is unknown.' Even still he saw reason, soon enough. Maker how I miss that man.
Aveline was no fool, she knew Hawke was a reasonable and responsible woman – but it was difficult at times to reconcile the fact that she was also an apostate. It had been law since time immemorial that magic existed to serve man, and that in order to ensure such servitude it was necessary to confine magic to the Circles – and the ever-watchful eyes of the Templars. With magic came terror and destruction – like blood magic and demonic possession. It only took one mage to inflict great pain, to destroy dozens to even hundreds of lives. It was necessary for both their own protection and the protection of the world at large that they remain where Templars like her Wesley could protect them from themselves.
And yet she trusted Hawke. Ever since she had carried Aveline out of the wilderness, ever since Aveline's survival had been directly because of her magic… she could no longer believe that all mages needed such confining. If Hawke had been confined, Aveline would be dead. It was that simple.
Still, her late husband's sensibilities yet held some sway over her. Abject usage of magic still raised her hackles, this time especially since the Keeper's magic was so foreign, even further than Hawke's. Maker, the First to the Clan is a blood mage.
And yet despite being an apostate herself the Keeper rejected her First, apparently because of that blood magic. To many Templars all apostates were essentially maleficarum – when they rejected the notion that magic was made to serve, then of course they meant to use it for ill. Merrill was yet another rejection – despite her usage of blood magic, the elf insisted she did no harm to any others.
Aveline felt that the girl told true – that at the very least she meant no harm to anyone. She was not maleficarum as the Chantry believed. Like Hawke, Merrill stood as another chip to the very foundations of what the Chantry teachings.
Now that girl huddled behind a trail near as thin as she was, stuck as if she too were rooted in place – not a dangerous maleficar, but a young girl afraid of combat. Martin knelt in his own cover, a particularly full bush a ways away. The man kept his eyes to the cave before him, struggling to extricate something from his pack without looking. Carver was sat up against another boulder across the way, too large to stand and still be covered. Varric was nowhere to be seen, as often seemed the case whenever trouble reared its ugly head.
"Oi," Hawke prodded, nudging Aveline with her elbow. "Isn't this thief of yours supposed to be alone?"
Aveline grunted. "It could be him, though I've never heard anything of him being skilled with a bow. He's just a run of the mill thug, more like throw a sap than an arrow."
"So…" Hawke began, conspiratorially. "He must be a right shite shot, aye?"
Aveline kept her eyes on the clearing, distracted. "Arrows have come close to me twice now."
"Who is it?" Merrill called to them from her own cover. The girl's voice was strained, tenuous – but level. The girl was not panicking, at least. "Why are they shooting at us?"
"Usual reason," Hawke called back. "Jealousy of our fereldan swagger. Right, you ready Aveline?"
"Ready for what?" She asked at the same time as Merrill questioned what a swagger was, all while still trying to keep her eyes peeled for their assailant.
"This!" Hawke shouted, dodging out of cover. She leapt out as proud as punch to stand several feet away from her rock. "Hey, you! You might want to quit the archery tourney, you're a right sorry shot!"
An arrow loosed from above the cave entrance, from a shrub-cluttered shelf of rock. It cut through the air as a dull blur before embedding itself at Hawke's feet. She guffawed without flinching, irrationally amused.
Has she gone completely mad? Aveline thought, leaping out after her friend. She moved as quickly as her burdensome kite shield would allow, kneeling down behind it even as an arrow clanged off its battered surface. The shock of the impact reverberated the metal, shaking her hand down to her elbow.
"Can make it when it doesn't count, can't make it when it does!" Hawke bellowed over her head at a painfully loud volume. "You'd do proper at the Rose with hands shaking like that! Perfect for a nice frig!"
"Shut your whore mouth!" A distinctly Kirkwaller voice shouted from the clifftop, obviously enraged. "I'll plow you bloody, bitch!"
That stood Carver right up from his own cover. "Say that again!"
"Plow yourself!" The man replied instead. "And sod off! This here's my cave, nobody else's! Get gone while your legs can still carry you!"
"Last I checked this is Kirkwall land, down and through the Planasene, and I have here a very angry Kirkwall Sergeant who'd like a word with you!" Hawke looked down at the still kneeling Aveline, grinning. "You give him what for, Sergeant," she muttered quietly, encouraging.
Before Aveline could gather her wits long enough to 'give him what for,' the bowman revealed himself. He stepped out of concealment from behind several large shrubs on his shelf above the cave, his bow hanging loosely at his side.
"Sergeant? Who? Which one are you? I thought I was to wait for Arren, not no Sergeant." With that said he grasped his bow in both hands – he leaned forward towards them but kept his bow pointed down. "This ain't even the right – "
A telltale clattered sounded from Aveline's right and slightly behind, out of her field of view. Before her scattered thoughts managed to identify that familiar noise, its handiwork sprouted from the standing bowman's shoulder.
To his credit the man didn't scream as Varric's bolt pierced undoubtedly down through his bone, didn't so much as whimper as his body slammed forwards at the awkward angle of his lean, folded as his chest hit stone, then pitched forward to fall the dozen or so paces down in front of the cave entrance. He landed with an audible crunch that made Aveline wince.
"Oh my!" Merrill gasped, and Aveline suddenly wondered if the seemingly naïve girl had ever seen a man die before.
"Sorry to interrupt," Varric called from behind them. Aveline turned to see the dwarf with his usual infuriating grin. "But Bianca had her own opinions on his aim. She just flies off the handle sometimes."
Hawke turned full body back to face her slippery dwarven friend. "Nice shot. A bit late, but still, a nice shot."
Martin stood up to join them, his hammers tied at his sides but his stance still tense. His pack remained held in one of his hands as he shoved what looked to be the arms of a crossbow back in it. "You act the great marksman, Varric – do you always wait until your target has all but painted itself red?"
Aveline ignored Varric's bantering reply, Carver's sneer, even Merrill's questioning. Her mind was still on her thief, on what he'd been saying before Varric had interrupted him so. Arren. He was expecting a city guard, ceased his attack when he saw one. I knew the Guard wasn't exactly honorable, but this… She moved up on the cave entrance, towards the collapsed heap that was once her thief. The man matched the description she had been given, both by Alienage elves and Darktown denizens – burn scar on his jaw, dark hair. He was responsible for stealing much from those downtrodden peoples, most often at the lead of several other muscle-bound bastards who beat people down and stole all they carried.
He had invaded homes, sapped passersby. He was even responsible for at least one death, an elf he had kicked just one too many times. And he was awaiting a guard. Obviously not to be arrested.
Someone in the guard was accomplice to his crimes. Someone profited of his evil, had possibly even taken part in his actions.
Aveline's blood boiled. I will find him, and I will bring him to justice. He was to wait for Arren, meaning someone else told him to wait for that sorry excuse for a guardsman. Someone else is responsible.
She fought the undignified desire to kick the man's lying corpse and instead stepped over it, moving forward into the shallow cave. If she was to find out whoever was abetting him within the guard, she would need evidence. Evidence she hoped this man kept.
Rummaging around she found a meager set of provisions, a hefty sack of coins (mostly copper and silvers), and a small firepit. Scattered in the pit were the burnt remains of some sort of parchment, likely a letter of some kind. It was too scorched to get much in the way of meaning, but a couple lines remained legible.
...wait Arren, Thur… Dusk. Exchange…
...right… Don't fu…
She had near concrete proof now. Not only could she testify to the man naming a specific guardsman as a liaison before his sudden death, but she could also verify that another had instructed him to await a meeting with Arren.
Guardsman Arren would be getting quite the surprise when she arrived back. The Captain will assuredly jail him and put him to question. With any luck, we will have rooted out this rot within the guard by the end of the week.
"Aveline!" Carver's voice called after her. "You just about done poking around? My sister wants us to start the trek back to Kirkwall sos to get back 'for dark."
"I'm done," Aveline answered, carefully pocketing the damaged parchment. It wasn't what she'd anticipated – she hadn't expected for this thief to have connections within the guard… and the results of the encounter certainly weren't ideal. He likely could have told us more had Varric not killed him.
What little remained of the letter, and her word, would have to suffice. Stepping into the sun from the brief shade of the cave warmed her skin and brought a spring to her step.
Hawke turned from where she stood to the side with her brother, observing Martin and Merrill as they lowered the recently deceased corpse into the earth. It was a strange sight to see, the young elf prodding the earth with her staff as Martin lit a hastily gathered bit of kindling ablaze at the head. The very earth seemed to swallow the corpse, then the fire. Magic, Aveline thought and turned away.
Once she would've objected to such a disrespectful treatment of a corpse, even one of an evil man such as this thief. By Chantry tradition everyone, great or small, received a proper pyre to send them to the Maker's bosom. Or elsewhere, were the man evil enough.
Her time at Ostagar had changed her mind on that – like so many things. Burning a body properly as the Maker intended simply took too much time for soldiers (or even mercenaries) who had very little time to spare in safety. Those that killed for a living would die of old age after their first battle were they to properly account for the disposal of the dead. What Martin was doing was a common occurrence in the wilds, on the roads – anywhere a man died and could not be afforded the luxury of cremation. A fire burnt in benediction, even one as paltry as that, was taken to be enough. Even though this one didn't deserve it, it was good of Martin to do as was right.
"Find anything interesting?" Hawke asked curiously. Aveline looked at her, considered.
"Some," she admitted. It was too early on to talk openly of what she'd found about Arren, though she doubted Hawke would even care anyways. Hawke already expected the guard to be corrupt – I doubt she would be overconcerned with evidence of that fact. That she assumed Aveline's lack of such corruption as a given was just another in the set of kindnesses she had bestowed upon the Guardswoman thus far into their friendship. "Some stolen coin," she finished banally.
"Did I hear something about coin?" Varric's voice popped up from where he'd been leaning against a boulder some distance from the shabby burial Merrill and Martin were just finishing.
"Yes," Aveline answered, with just a hint of annoyance at the dwarf's obvious greed. "I know some of those who had their livelihoods taken by this man. Now I can at least return a part of what was stolen."
"We could bloody use that coin," Carver added noncommittally.
"Sometimes," Hawke said, completely ignoring her brother. "I think you're too good for this world, Aveline. Too good for Kirkwall, certainly."
Aveline shrugged at the praise. "There is nothing special in doing what is right. That is the bare minimum anyone must do."
"Your definition of the minimum is pretty much everybody's maximum," Varric said amiably. "People look out for themselves, what's theirs, their families and friends – then, maybe, sometimes – 'what's right.' And half of people who care about 'right' have a 'right' that you'd probably think of as a left." He grinned stupidly at that, characteristically proud of his usual trite insights into mankind.
Aveline rolled her eyes at that but was beaten to respond by Hawke.
"Wouldn't mind giving you a right left right now, Varric," she said with a smile.
"That hurts, it really does," Varric grinned back.
"It would, that's for sure. All of this looming lust between us packs a wallop of a punch."
"For the Maker's sake, shut it and get a move on," Carver barked, shouldering his bag. "You were the one who wanted to get back quickly."
Hawke shot a long-suffering glance Carver's way. "Indeed I was, and still am. Let's head home."
Even as she shouldered her own pack, her shield slung over-top, Aveline found herself lost deep in thought. Considering deeply the expectations of minimums.