Repercussions part 1

Posted on 15 Jul 2023 @ 4:51am by Warrior Martin Josceran & Rogue Nazri Arisant
Edited on on 15 Jul 2023 @ 4:52am

3,229 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Summer Nights in Jader
Location: Green Griffin Inn
Timeline: Bloomingtide 9th

After what had happened at the mansion, Nazri was just glad to be alive, and in one piece. He also needed a drink, maybe several of them. Normally, he'd go to the Raven's Roost. After all, that was where he lived, and if he drank a little too much, all he had to do was walk up the stairs and fall onto his bed. But, it had been a long time since he'd drunk so much that he passed out. So, he didn't think that was going to happen.

There was no denying that the Raven's Roost was a great place, but, he was looking for something new and different. The Green Griffin was close to the waterfront and a bar that sailors frequented. It wasn't as nice as the Roost. He could tell that the minute he walked in. To call it a dive bar would be generous. He checked his purse as he moved further into the interior, a haze of smoke hovering above his head. He also checked his sword. Not that he expected too much trouble in the middle of the afternoon, but one can never be too careful.

He sat down at the end of the L-shaped bar and ordered himself a mead.

***

It had taken a long time but at last, the prey was within his grasp. Imran did his best to hold back his excitement as he navigated through the chairs and tables of the Green Griffin. He hadn't known where the Saarebas was going to be headed so he hadn't been able to prepare, but he was comfortable with some improvisation. More than that, he relished it; it made the pleasure of the hunt all the sweeter.

He ordered a mead, not because he enjoyed the watered-down swill but because his prey had ordered the same. Once he had his tankard in hand, it was a simple business to open a small vial and pour a few drops into the mead. Four... five... Imran considered, eyed the bulk of his prey, and added a few more drops. It wouldn't kill, but it would sure as hell make the Saarebas when it wore off. His trap ready, the altered mead in hand, Imran approached the prey's table, adding a slight wobble to his gait to make himself look even more harmless.

"Hey," he slurred, putting his tankard on the table next to the Qunari's identical one, "fancy a - hic - game of dice ?"

Nazri had been lost in thought and distracted, something that rarely happened, and he didn't notice the stranger until he was right beside him.

With a start, his hand reached for his stiletto but eased it back upon closer inspection.

"You're drunk," he observed, "sorry I don't take money from drunks."

"D-drunk ?" Imran pretended to be drunkenly offended. "M'not. C'mon. Are you scared of losin'?" He lifted his hand and flashed a pair of dice. At the same time, while his prey's gaze was naturally drawn to the dice, he appropriated the prey's tankard as if it was his, leaving the identical, poisoned drink on the table.

The qunari should have known better. He was suspicious by nature, but he was distracted by Imran's act and by his sleight of hand and missed the switch of his drink.

"I'm not afraid of a challenge," Nazri asserted. "You mind if I check your dice?"

"S-suspicious sort, eh ?" Imran chortled, warming up to his impersonation of a somewhat tipsy gambler. He might even say he was having fun. "Sure thing, g-got nuthin' to hide." He tossed the dice on the table and they rolled and stopped in front of the prey. They were perfectly ordinary wooden dice, with dots burnt onto each face. "I'll even let ya pick the rules. Orlesian toss or Fereldan thirteen ?"

Nazri took a sip of his drink, after all, that's what he'd come in here for, not to be accosted by a drunk, who couldn't hold his liquor.

He made no comment to the other's accusations about him being the suspicious type, after all, it was true. Instead, he examined the dice carefully and was convinced that they were just as the gambler said they were.

"Let's do Orlesian toss then since I get to choose."

"Fine by me," Imran considered a loud burp but decided against it; overdoing it would be suspicious and he needed to stick around until the poison started to work. Grabbing the chair in front of the prey he sat down. "First roll's yours."

He watched the Saarebas unobtrusively as he picked up the dice. With the dosage he'd spiked the drink with, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes before the effects started to show.

Nazri held the dice in his hand, shook them, and tossed the dice on the floor. A two and a four came up. "There you go," he said, "beat that."

Imran took the dice and made a show of blowing on them for luck. As if luck could ever replace true skills. "Here goes." The dice rolled loudly on the table, nearly falling off the edge, and stopped on a 6 and 5. "Hah !" Imran grinned.

Nazri gave the man a confused look, "Point to you," he said. "I think." He took another sip of his drink, but when he tried to sit back down it took him two times to get it on the counter. The first time he missed the edge and it almost fell to the floor.

Imran smiled, and it wasn't because of his score at dice. All was going as planned. "Your turn", he said, pretending not to notice the Qunari's clumsiness, and he tossed the dice back to him.

Nazri was big, not as much as some of his species, but larger than a lot of humans, but he was pretty agile for his size. Normally, he would have easily caught them, but this wasn't a normal situation, though he didn't fully realize it. He caught one of them, but the other fell to the floor.

He stooped to pick it up and almost fell off of the stool. "What the fuck?" he asked blinking his eyes.

Imran scooped up the fallen die and set it back on the table. His prey was almost ripe for the taking. "Are you alright ?" he asked, feigning concern.

The qunari shook his head back and forth. "No, I'm not, I don't know what's wrong with me."

He tried to stand and even made it to his feet before the room started to spin. "You bastard," he spat out in a moment of clarity, "you did this to me. You put something in my drink."

Then he slumped forward leaning against the bar.

Fortunately, the tavern was noisy enough that no one heard - and even if they had, nobody would have cared about the crazy ramblings of a drunkard who couldn't hold his mead. Imran feigned solicitude.

"Had a bit too much to drink? Lemme help ya." He maintained the pretense, even though nobody seemed to be paying them the slightest bit of attention. The prey was in no condition to dispute Imran's version of events anyway. He slipped the Qunari's arm over his shoulder and guided him out of the tavern.

The fresh air outside was like a slap to the face after the smoky, noisy, and overcrowded tap room. Imran adjusted his hold
on the prey, groaning slightly under his weight. Small he may be for a Qunari but he was still bigger than most humans. Fortunately, Imran was no lightweight himself, and the prey was just about conscious enough to stay on his feet.

The tide was low, which meant most ships that were going to leave already had, and those that were to arrive would come in with the rising tide. The docks were left more quiet than usual; the few sailors and passers-by that were still around cut Imran and his prey a wide berth. Prejudice was a wonderful thing, Imran thought when you knew how to use it to your advantage.

The way Imran supported the prey's weight meant that their heads were close together. The prey would be barely able to move, but what Imran said should be able to come across the fog in its brain. Imran tilted his head slightly to whisper in the silvery ear near his mouth :

"Nehraa Qun, tal-vashoth. Nehraa aqun ebra kata Qamek."
OOC Translation: "For the Qun, Apostate. Your service to the Qun demands Qamek."

The words and the fresh air sobered Nazri and brought him to greater awareness, which only made things worse because he knew just enough to know what was going on but was still too out of it to react, or at least to react offensively. There was one thing he could do though and he forced himself to do so. Rather than resist, he slumped against the smaller man. stopped his legs from moving and let his full weight fall on the bounty hunter.

"Oof," Imran grunted as the prey suddenly got much heavier. Growing limp as almost as efficient as struggling back, Imran found himself essentially dragging the equivalent of a two-hundred-pound sack of potatoes. Fortunately, they were not going far - the abandoned warehouse Aristen had secured for the job was close enough that Imran would still manage to drag the tal-vashoth there, with or without his cooperation.

***

Martin's patrol had been uneventful so far. As usual, his routes included the Alienage and the docks, which were the least popular amongst the Guard so no one was fighting him for them. He hadn't picked them out of some sense of sacrifice. He liked his job and the belief that he could make a positive difference, and by now he'd made friends in those districts. Well, friends and enemies, when he'd made it clear he wasn't taking bribes.

The sun was setting now, casting pink and gold highlights on the sea. Although the docks smelt of rotten fish and other unmentionables and saw more than its fair share of brawls, Martin actually really enjoyed this little stroll along the promenade. Even so, he remained vigilant. His uniform made him a target, no matter how well he knew some of the people.

He was just about to double back, having seen nothing of note, when the sight of a familiar pair of horns at the corner of a building stopped him in his tracks. He squinted. Despite the distance, he recognized Nazri, except he looked dead drunk and more than a little unsteady on his feet. Martin picked up his pace to try and catch up, just as Nazri and whoever was helping him turned into a side alley.

"Hey!" he called, now running.

The human who was supporting most of Nazri's weight paused, then turned awkwardly. Martin didn't recognize him, and his dark skin suggested he hailed from Antiva or more likely Rivain. A drinking buddy of Nazri's, clearly.

"Yes, Serah?" the man enquired politely, with a slight lilting accent. Nazri's head was lolling over his shoulder, not just drunk but completely passed out.

"My name's Martin, I'm a friend of Nazri's. What happened ?"

The man hesitated. He was tall and bulky, looking more like a soldier than a sailor, his skin dark, with amber eyes that darted left and right before settling back on Martin. A feeling of unease crept down Martin's back, though he couldn't pinpoint the exact reason for it.

"He's had a little too much to drink," the man said. "I was helping him back home. I think he just needs to sleep it off, tomorrow he'll be as good as new." Again his eyes darted left and right.

Nazri was small for a qunari, but there was a reason for that, at least when it came to his weight. It was his metabolism. It was higher than normal for one of his race. Which might have wound up saving his life or at least his freedom. He was coming around. His brain was still not firing on all cylinders and he was having an almost impossible task of getting the signal to his limbs to move. But he was more responsive than he was letting on.

His eyes were only open a slit, partially because he couldn't get them to open much more and partially because he was playing opossum, but he noticed another qunari, a lot larger than himself creeping up on his new friend.

He tried to elbow Imran as hard as he could, though he wasn't sure if he even hit him. At the same time, he yelled, "Martin, look out behind you."

What actually came out of Nazri's mouth was a garbled croak more than a real shout, but the alarm on his face and the way his eyes focused behind him made Martin spin, only just barely in time to dodge a small axe aimed at his head. He leaped back, Nazri and the human on his left, his attacker on his right, in an attempt to keep them all in his field of vision. The newcomer was a Qunari - not a small one like Nazri, this one was a hulking mountain of muscles.

Against such a foe Martin's sword felt woefully inadequate but he unsheathed it anyway. The Qunari had two axes, one in each hand, and he twirled them like someone who knew how to use them. He also had a two-hander on his back that he hadn't bothered to unsheathe, presumably under the assumption that he wouldn't need it.

Please do underestimate me, Martin thought. It was his only advantage and not much of one at that.

The larger qunari was angry. He thought things were going to be easy and he was going to drag this heretic back to face justice and see him wearing the chains he deserved. Of course, he was going to have some fun with him on the trip home. Torture was something he found stimulating. He would have eliminated the human bounty hunter. He didn't like loose ends or unnecessary expenses.

Now he needed him, at least for the moment. So dealing with the incompetent fool would have to wait.

He was confident he could take out the puny human guardsman, perhaps too confident. He stepped forward and swung both axes at the man's head.

Martin ducked, only just in time. His smaller size actually came at an advantage because the Qunari had to try and hit him at an awkward angle, but he was under no illusion that this made up for their massive difference in size and strength. At least his longer blade did make up for their difference in reach.

"You do know you're under arrest, right ?" he called, mostly to distract his opponent, and then without waiting for an answer he went onto the offensive, a set of moves he'd practiced until he could do them in his sleep. One step forward, spin to the left, feint, step right again, and thrust into the opponent's side.

The qunari had faced many opponents in his time, and though some of the battles had been bloody, he was, up until that time, undefeated. He was sure this time would be no different. "You do know you're dead," he replied to Martin telling him he was under arrest.

The warrior's maneuver worked, at least partially. The qunari was fooled by the feint but was as able to twist his body just enough, so the blow just grazed him. It drew blood, a good deal of it, and it hurt like hell, but it was not a mortal blow.

Martin had not hoped to deal a fatal blow so easily. With an opponent this big, he was going to have to weaken him before he could hope to end the fight. Right now he was playing for time, waiting until the blood loss and pain made the Qunari sloppy. He held his ground, circling around his foe without trying to attack, leaving the initiative to his enemy. Now that blood had been shed, every second that passed was in his favor.

"Walk away now," the big qunari threatened without advancing, "Arisant is a wanted man, a fugitive from justice. I even have a warrant. He's not worth it, he's not worth you losing your life and you're on the wrong side."

A warrant. Martin would have laughed in the Qunari's face if he hadn't been focusing on his defense. A man with a true warrant would have shown up at the guardhouse and asked for their cooperation, and might even have gotten it, depending on what the crime was. "Not sure what side is right or wrong, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to be on the side of someone who thinks abduction and murder are acceptable. There are laws for a reason."

On his left, he heard a grunt of pain but he couldn't tell who it came from. Nazri? Worry churned in his stomach. His friend was vulnerable. He had assumed they wouldn't touch him since he was already out of it but clearly, he'd been wrong, and now time no longer played in his favor. Making a split-second decision, he deliberately left an opening in his defense. See if the Qunari took the bait.

The qunari was big. He was tough. He had two large axes. Normally he was competent, at times, even cautious, but he was facing a mere human, a squishy little thing that had just made a fatal error. So, he stepped in and swung both axes at Martin's head.

Yes ! In his eagerness to finish the fight the Qunari had overextended himself and compromised his balance. Now Martin thanked the maker for all the excruciatingly boring footwork drills he'd done over the years. The steps were as practiced as if it were a dance, dodge left, allow the qunari to stumble through empty air, and strike at his now vulnerable side.

Despite his size, the Qunari was fast. He saw the trap as it sprang and twisted desperately out of the way, while he allowed his axes to continue their trajectory in a circle that ended with Martin's right arm.

Both weapons met flesh. Martin's sword sank into the Qunari's stomach moments before one of the hand axes bit through his leather pauldron, and his sword was wrenched from his grasp as his enemy's momentum carried him to the ground. He fell face first on the cobblestones, only driving the sword deeper into his belly, and lay there, gasping and coughing blood.

As shock waned, the pain started to burn and Martin stared stupidly at his shoulder, and the axe still embedded there. Blood seeped through the leather, the stain growing larger until it reached the edge of the pauldron, and blood started dripping on the ground. Martin felt sick and light-headed with the pain, and he swallowed hard as he pulled at the axe. Fortunately, it came away easily. The wound underneath did not look too bad, although it may require stitches. The pauldron had taken most of the damage.

"Like I said," Martin said to the Qunari, still catching his breath. "You're under arrest."

Nazri. The thought made him turn around in sudden alarm. Where was Nazri, and the human who'd been dragging him away?

-----

 

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