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Rules of engagement:
- Strike hard and strike fast; you are a shadow made flesh
- Hold your blade in one hand and your heart in the other
- Never let them see you bleed
There’s a bird picking its way along the roadside, black feathers gleaming in the sunlight. A jackdaw, he believes it’s called. A smaller cousin of the crow. Fitting. They are birds of a feather, after all.
The jackdaw cocks its head to one side, regards him inquisitively with one beady eye. He nods a small greeting, crouched only a few yards away. Tries to stay still so as not to scare the bird. It seems unbothered by his presence, hops its way through the grass, pausing to tap its beak at the ground in search of food. The early bird. The poor worm.
The weight of his daggers are a comforting presence on his back, reminding him what he’s here for. He tested their edge only this morning; they’re sharp, deadly, ready to be put to their use. Just as he is. This should be easy. No one can say he’s not prepared.
And yet. Ambushes are sloppy, messy, hardly the Crow way – certainly not for such an easy mark. He could have slipped into their camp at night, slit their throats before they were even aware of his coming. Should have, even.
But instead, he’s here, a trap ready to spring. Lying in wait, coiled, poised, his breath coming sharper than the edge of his knife. He’s done this too many times before to be nervous, but still. His heart thumps like the beat to a dance. His hands haven’t shaken like this since the first.
(He was ten, the first time. They gave him a blade and told him to kill. He slit the throat of a man twice his age; fumbled the first cut, had to try again. Slid his blade through soft skin like scissors through silk. The blood dried his hair to rust.)
He’s never missed a mark, his dagger never fails. He just has to ride out these nerves, wait for the calm of the kill to descend upon him like mist beneath the moon. In the heat of battle, there’s no one surer, no one more confident than he. It’s just the waiting that’s killing him.
Ha. Killing him. That’s funny.
He’s always known what would happen if he failed a contract. At first, that knowledge was the only thing that kept him going, kept him killing. Death is a good motivator.
But then he came to see the Crows as something else. He learnt that he was nothing without them, just an elven bastard, the son of a dead whore. But with them he could hold life and death in his hands, wield power – real power. The Crows rule Antiva, and he was just a kid. Of course he believed what they told him.
So they gave him a blade and told him to kill. And he did.
The jackdaw, closer now, has found a snail. It beats the shell against the ground, tap tap tap. Like an echo of his racing heart.
He watches as the bird hops from place to place, searching for a stone against which to dash out the snail. It takes but a moment, and then – tap tap – the shell smashes, the bird gulps down the slimy treat inside. It catches his eye again, chirps cockily in his face.
(He can’t help but wonder; is he the crow or the snail?)
He knows he will die if he fails this. He also knows his mark is meant to be unkillable. He has never failed a contract before, but then, he has never wanted to.
Death is a good motivator.
He was happy doing this, once. Proud of his skill, enjoyed the power it gave him, the importance he thought he had. Never again would he be nothing, not while he watched a man’s life drain from his eyes. Murder was more than his business, it was his life, his whole self.
Once, just once, he made the mistake of wanting something else. Of believing he had worth, outside his skill as a killer. He forgot the Crows, his contracts, himself even. He fell in love.
And then they came to him. And they gave him a blade.
Once it was all done, he looked down at the body of the woman he loved, slain by his hand, and he realised the truth. There is no freedom in this. What use is power if you cannot wield it yourself? They never gave him a blade; he is the blade. They took a boy and they made him their weapon; they told him that was freedom. And he believed them.
So when he was offered a purse full of gold for a target that couldn’t be killed, a contract that he knew he would surely fail or die in the attempt – he took it. They gave him a blade, and he turned it on himself.
There is some comfort, some freedom even, in knowing that whatever happens now, he is going to die. Either the wardens will kill him, or the Crows will. His very doom renders him untouchable. There is nothing more they can do to him.
One of the Teyrn’s men appears at his elbow. A lookout he had posted up ahead to inform them of the wardens’ approach. The waiting is over. Soon he will be free, one way or another.
He stands briskly, sending the jackdaw fluttering away on startled wings. It will outlive him.
They take up their positions, spring the trap.
And the snail they are to catch? Just a few ragged travellers, road-weary and dirty. This is no elite force. Indeed, he would have trouble believing they were his target were two of them not in Warden colours. A man and an elf. The human looks tired, cautious. The other just looks angry.
He can’t help the stab of disappointment, fear even. He could succeed in his mission after all, even after all this. He is a trained assassin with twenty men at his back; the wardens have few allies and fewer resources. He has taken on far harder jobs with far worse odds. He cannot lose this, not even with all his trying.
He must resign himself to living.
But that is a problem for later. Now, he must only fight. He draws the blades from his back and lets the swell of battle overtake him. This is the only time when his mind is perfectly clear, filled only with slice and stab, parry and slash, dodge and cut. He knows the steps to this dance better than the letters of his own name; this comes easier than breathing.
And yet- it would seem has has underestimated the wardens, for they may be few but they are strong. The dog mauls and barks its way through the Teyrn’s men; the black-haired witch is woman no longer but rather a great bear; the Chantry sister lets arrow after arrow fly from her bow. Even the old woman, her face nearly as white as her hair, sends crackling fire across the battlefield.
But truly, it is one of those in Warden colours who is the most impressive. Short and stocky, with the same pointed ears and browned skin as Zevran himself, this warden wields two blades with a ferocity that burns Zevran even from this distance. The warden has no mercy, no hesitation, fights dirty and angry and honest, and for a moment Zevran is mesmerised by the way this fighter twirls and snarls, fluent in their own dance just as deadly as his own.
And then a sword is rammed through Zevran’s side, and he stumbles. Fights his way through it, sends his attacker – the human warden with a sword and shield, no match for his superior speed – sprawling to the ground, manages to lurch out the way of an arrow before turning his attention to the archer. He’s nearly upon her when suddenly the other warden is there, blazing with righteous fury, and his grip on his daggers goes slack. The light catches on the warden’s armour, reflected in their eyes, and for a moment they seem to blaze like Andraste herself.
It’s embarrassing, really, how easily the warden defeats him. But his heart was never in the fight. And his shirt is slick with his own blood.
The ground is cold against his back, the grass grazing his cheek. He feels heavy and numb, and he’s glad, because that means he failed. The warden killed him, after all.
Overhead, he fancies he sees the shape of a bird in the sky. He hopes it’s the jackdaw. It would be nice to die in the company of a friend.