The Contract
Viago de Riva's eyebrow twitched, and the muscles in his jaw tightened. His hand moved with precision, in a fluid motion borne from long practice. With a flick of his wrist, the king was dead.
“Checkmate”, he said in triumph.
“I'll get you next time, old man”, Zea replied, creasing her mouth into a half smile at the frown this quip drew upon Viago's face. He was probably less than a decade older than her, but Viago had mentored Zea during her training, and she enjoyed winding him up about it.
“You need to be less impulsive”, Viago explained with an air of exasperation. “Not every battle can be won through attack alone, Rook”.
Zea crinkled her nose at the nickname Viago insisted on using. When he first set eyes on that skinny street kid, practically swallowed up in a patched, oversized cloak, Viago declared she looked more like a scruffy rook than an Antivan Crow. Yet he took her in and trained her nonetheless, seeing the fury behind those soft violet eyes, and knowing it could be honed into a useful tool.
She picked up the carved ebony chess piece that shared that name, a sturdy-looking castle with crenellated turrets, and turned it over in her hand. For Viago to take that old nickname and play with its double meaning as a chess reference was just like him; the man who named his poisons with execrable puns like “up and adder” clearly enjoyed wordplay as much as swordplay.
“Rook” used to irritate her, but she had come to view the name with affection; it was better that than the name she once bore like that itchy, ill-fitting cloak. Zea put down the chess piece onto the marble board and stretched, feeling her taut muscles loosening, the faint twinge of old scars from half-forgotten fights, her body now a well-toned weapon, a far cry from the urchin she once was.
Viago stood and walked across the wood-panelled room to look out of the large arched window, paned with softly-tinted glass in lead diamonds, and gazed out at the city of Treviso, burnished amber by the setting sun. Now the game was over, and both Crows had a chance to observe each other's moods and tells, he was straight-backed, all business as usual.
“We have heard word that the Antaam are planning to move. I don't know what – weapons, troops, supplies – but it's something big. I need eyes on the rooftops”. He turned to Zea, frowning firmly. “House Cantori are sending what spies they can to the central quarter, but I need you by the docks”.
Zea knew the area, where she ended up after running away from home, where she first learned to fight and steal, where she first killed a man. She rose to meet Viago's dark eyes and nodded curtly.
“Listen to me, Letezea”, Viago said, using her full name to convey the seriousness of the words that followed. “Observe, but do not engage. We need information tonight, not blood”.
“You know me, Viago”, Zea replied.
“I do, which is why I won't repeat myself. Get your gear, prepare to leave once darkness falls”.
———
Zea made her way quietly across the terracotta-tiled rooftops of Treviso, following the lines of the canals that were the arteries of the city, leaping lightly from roof to roof above the densely-packed buildings that jostled for space near the city's heart. Treviso by day, seen from the ground, was impressive enough; all high stone walls, marble statues and wide bridges. From up here, by night, it was truly spectacular. Flickering lamps illuminated golden pools of light, reflecting in arched windows and glinting off the canals in a dance of fire and water. Beyond the welcoming glow, raven-black shadows crawled up the sides of tall towers whose stiletto spires stabbed the velvet sky.
The city's beauty was violently marred by occasional buildings in ruins, with hastily-constructed barricades and banners proclaiming the victory of the Antaam, the invading Qunari force that recently claimed Treviso as their own, a sapphire in their bloodied crown as they swept south, through Rivain and into Antiva. Their spiked symbols of conquest stood out against Treviso's romantic architecture like a broken bone protruding from a recent wound.
Moving across the roofs, Zea passed the night markets and cafes of the city centre, smiling slightly with pride. Treviso never truly slept, and her people were stubborn – no invading army would come between them and la bella vita. She breathed in the scents of coffee and spices, which mingled in the night breeze with the smell from the canals, a heady bouquet that was distinctly Trevisan.
Zea reached the pointed gable of a high rooftop, and swung across the canal below on a precarious-looking zipline, one of many constructed by the Crows to get around the city fast. She landed gracefully on a flatter roof on the east side of the waters, and continued towards the dimly-lit warehouses by the docks. Looking down at the cobbled street below, she paused to brush her curly hair from her eyes, and check her mageknife at her hip. Its long blade was somewhere between a dagger and a short sword, and it bore a crow skull inlaid at the pommel. Zea remembered being presented with it on the day she became a full Crow, and she remembered using it to focus her magic into a deadly shard of ice for her first contract. She had no intention of using it tonight, but feeling its weight there was a source of comfort.
There beneath her, gathering in a cobbled square between two commandeered warehouses, were a troop of Antamm soldiers; tall, horned, and heavily armed. They had torches lit around the perimeter which cast eerie shadows on the walls, and were busying themselves loading crates onto a boat docked nearby. Adjusting her eyes to the firelight, Zea saw that this was not the Antaam's only cargo. Three or four iron-barred and wooden-topped cages sat just within the ring of torchlight, each one crammed with prisoners – humans, elves, even a couple of dwarfs. Antaam guards stood in front of the cages, occasionally jabbing at the captives with their spears or cursing at them in Qunlat. Zea knew a few words of the Qunari tongue, picked up from merchants and sailors who traded with Treviso before the Antaam invaded in force, and caught the word bas, meaning “thing”. Her blood boiled hot in her veins as Viago's words from earlier that evening echoed in her head.
“Fuck this”, she murmured as she jumped from the roof.
———
Zea's midnight blue cape spread out like wings as she fell, drawing her mageknife and summoning an orb of blue-white frost in her other hand, which she threw at the nearest Antaam like a bomb, exploding into shards of ice, piercing the guard's flesh and blinding his eyes as he screamed in pain and rage.
“The Crows send their regards”, she said as she landed gracefully and swooped low with her blade, cutting another guard's ankle tendons, causing them to crumple forward with a sickening thud as their horned head impacted with the cobblestones.
“Saarebas!” the Antaam shouted, dropping the crates and cargo they were carrying and scrambling for their weapons.
Eyes darting around her, Zea realised that she had underestimated the number of Antaam; there was at least a dozen and a half again if not more, and she would never be able to signal for aid from other Crows before they were upon her. She thought quickly, and glanced over to the prisoners’ cages. Cutting her way through two more guards, she reached the corner where the captives were held. She focused her concentration, channeling energy down the length of her blade, and sent out a beam of ice. With a spinning jump, Zea shattered the locks of each cage with a slash of her knife.
“If you want to live, fight!” she called out to the prisoners, who poured out from their cages. Some fled in fear, but some grabbed makeshift weapons: rusty chains, planks of wood studded with bent nails, loose cobblestones. Others scavenged swords and spears from the guards Zea had already dispatched. They launched themselves upon the Antaam like a wave of panicked fury, taking the guards by surprise.
“Kid, my crossbow, over there!”, a dwarf shouted, gesturing to a pile of crates upon which a large and ornate crossbow sat, taken as a trophy by the Antaam. Zea feinted left as a guard thrust his spear towards her. Grabbing the haft and jumping high, she used the momentum of the spear to launch herself over the Antaam, twisting the weapon from his hands as she went. She landed by the crates, grabbed the crossbow, and tossed it to the dwarf, whose reflexes were admirably quick as he snatched it from the air. “Thanks, kid” he said gruffly, levelling the crossbow at the Antaam, and firing off several bolts at once. “Now, meet Bianca”.
Zea heard the crackling sound of an Antaam gaatlock gun powering up, and flung herself towards the noise, launching her orb directly at the gun's barrel. It exploded in a blast of magic and energy, taking out the artillery guard and at least two others nearby. Still, she could see that the Antaam had numbers and strength on their side. This battle would only end one way.
“Katara, bas!” one guard shouted exultantly as he cut down prisoners left and right with his wickedly jagged sword. His ornate armour and hairpin marked him as the commander of this particular unit, and his exposed face and arms were scarred with mementos of many battles and splashed red with fresh blood.
“Hey, Dathrasi!” Zea cried, springing into the centre of the fray. “Itwa-ost!” Her body felt like it would tear itself apart with the raw magic that sparked and cracked along the length of her limbs. A red-headed dwarf woman looked at her, and noticed instantly what she was planning.
“Move!” she called out to the other prisoners “Now, get off the ground!”
They climbed onto crates, onto their wooden-topped cages, onto the low roof of the warehouse, not asking any questions, trusting the dwarf's sudden call. Zea met the dwarf's eyes and grinned wickedly.
She gathered up all the power she had left, sending it out as a single blast of electricity that bloomed around her like a sparking purple sphere. The Antaam soldiers, in their metal-capped boots, on the wet cobblestones of the docks, jerked and shuddered as the energy flowed through their bodies, then fell prone to the ground with the sound of wet fish on a slab. As quickly as the surge began, it ended. Zea collapsed onto the stones, breath ragged, her head swimming. As her eyes turned to darkness, she heard the older dwarf's gravel voice; “Nice work, kid. That was some crazy shit”.
———
“What the fuck were you thinking?”, Viago's voice woke Zea from her groggy slumber. Blinking in the dawn light, she saw she was in an infirmary bed, along with several others; prisoners from the fight, recovering from their injuries. Healers moved from bed to bed, checking on the wounded. She rubbed her eyes, and Viago's pointed beard and sharp face came into focus, stern eyes glaring at her.
“Saving lives” Zea replied hoarsely.
“I told you to observe and not engage”, Viago said through gritted teeth. “We knew the Antaam were moving something, we needed to know where. You compromised an operation weeks in the making, and” – he paused to rub his temples with his knuckles and lowered his voice – “you almost got yourself killed, idiota”.
“Aw, were you worried about me?” Zea asked with a slight smile.
“Cazzo!” Viago swore. “The other Talons are calling for your head for this”.
“Not all the Talons, Vi”. Andarateia Cantori, a beautiful elven woman with an improbably large nest of mocha-coloured curly hair, said quietly, moving close to Viago and placing her hand upon his shoulder. “Zea was impulsive, but she did what was right”.
“The Antaam will retaliate”, Viago responded, inclining his head gently towards Teia. “More lives will be lost than saved because of this”.
Zea coughed and sat up in her bed. “Assassination is about sending a message”, she said. “You taught me that, Viago. Well, message sent. The Antaam know we're not to be screwed with, and the people know we've got their backs”.
“We're not heroes, Rook”, Viago sighed.
“Why not?” Zea asked, meeting Viago's eyes defiantly. “The Crows are meant to protect Antiva”.
“Remember our history, Vi”, Teia said quietly. “We are more than just hired killers. You worked to make us more, amore mio”.
Viago's brow furrowed, but he knew when he was defeated. He shrugged, and threw his hands wide in a gesture of resignation. “The Crows rule Antiva, and Treviso will be free”. He spoke the words as a mantra. “But I am the one who bears responsibility. You are a Crow of my House, and there must be seen to be discipline”.
“I made a call”, Zea protested, “I don't regret it”.
Viago stared down his aquiline nose at Zia. “It was not your call to make. On this chessboard, I am king. You were to be my Rook”.
“Rook, hey? That the one that only moves in straight lines?” a gravelly voice asked as the door to the infirmary swung open, the light from the corridor outside casting in silhouette the stocky form of a dwarf.
“Who in the hells?” Viago spat, drawing his dagger instinctively.
The dwarf stepped into the room. His hair was long, if receding at the front, and his beard stubbly and unkempt. He wore a long coat and a low-necked shirt that revealed a heavy chain with a large golden ring worn around his thick neck.
“Put your cheese knife down, Talon”, the dwarf began, “it's me”.
“Varric Tethras”, Viago sighed in a tone of general annoyance. “I might have known you would be at the centre of all of this”.
“You were there, with the prisoners”, Zea said, looking at the dwarf's rough face.
Varric looked over to her. “I was following a lead, before shit went sideways. Thanks for the assist, good work back there”.
He squared up to Viago, who stood a good head and shoulders taller than Varric, and held out his hands in an open gesture.
“Seems to me we can solve both our problems here...I'm putting together a team, and I could use someone like this one”, he gestured towards Zea. “I don't need soldiers who'll take orders – I need people who can think for themselves”. Varric gave Zea a wink, then turned back to Viago. “So how about I propose a contract? Mind if I take your Rook?”
“What contract?” Viago questioned.
“Well, I knew him as Solas”, Varric began...
———
Notes: Zea de Riva is my player character, “Rook”, in the game Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This is my attempt at fleshing out the background story for the character in the game.
Qunlat words used:
Bas = derogatory word for non-Qunari, literally “thing” or “purposeless”
Saarebas = Mage, literally “dangerous thing”
“Katara” = Die (imperative)
Gaatlock = a type of explosive black powder used in weaponry
Dathrasi = cattle, animal, derogatory
Itwa-ost = You all (will) fall
Boring bit: I don’t own Dragon Age, Thedas, Viago, or any of the characters. I’m just taking them out for a walk.
-River x.