Sisters of Tevinter

Right of Challenge

         An hour passed. The three travelers were completely drenched by now and the river continued to rush beneath their boots. Jor leaned heavily against a tree, the bark digging into her forearm. The sun was setting from behind the thick cloud cover in the sky, shadows danced wildly across the stones and ragged branches. 

         The rain was beginning to let up, only the occasional spatter of droplets. Cassandra sat on a nearby boulder to wring out her gloves. Bull remained standing casually beside Jor, his expression neutral. "We're being followed." 

          "Yes." Jor, who'd spent years tracking animals through underbrush and landscape, had heard the telltale rustling of foliage and the silence of the birds. There were six or seven of them, all keeping to the edge of the riverbank on the other side. 

           Bull smiled slightly. "Oh good. I thought maybe we were walking into a trap." 

           "We might be." Jor drew the chain Harding had given her from her coat and let it hang around her neck. "But if they wanted us dead, I think we would be."

            "Maybe. I think we could take 'em." 

            Jor laughed, the sound bubbled out of her and bounced off the trees. 

            "Come on, you don't think so?" Bull reached for the shaft of the maul over his shoulder, his eye trailing over the opposite riverbank. "Want me to soften them up for you?" 

            "No," Jor said softly, smiling as she shook her head. "We won't have to worry about it once we reach their camp."

             "Alright, but when you challenge this head Blade guy I won't let anyone step on your coattails." 

             Jor blew out a breath that shook with laughter. "Thank you."

             Cassandra stood. "We should continue before it gets dark."

             Jor nodded and rose, pushing off the tree trunk and resuming their trek up the river. The water wove around a large, flat expanse of rock, trees clustering against the mountainside, and suddenly the way cleared. 

              The trail lead up between two boulders to a camp of sharpened logs, walled in on either side from where it sat nestled against the mountain. They could smell cooking fires, see ribbons of gray smoke rise into the graying sky. Clouds parted here and there, golden lines of sunlight cast long shadows through the brush. 

                Two bandits in black armor stood guard on either side of the makeshift gate, just beneath a wooden pole strung between them. Skeletons and bloody corpses hung from nooses on the branch. 

             Jor recognized an Inquisition insignia on one of the bodies. Anger seized the beating mass in her chest. To display a victim of brutality... Her lip curled and her hands fell to the dirks at her hips. She'd faced demons. These were just men. She would make them understand the fatal error they'd just made. 

             Cassandra murmured a prayer for the dead, her voice low with pain and fury. 

             The scholar strode towards the gates, the Mercy's Crest nestled on her scarf. "I am the Herald of Andraste. I claim the right of challenge."

             The guard on the left glanced at his companion, shifting uneasily at the ice in Jor's tone. The guard on the right nodded slowly. "Enter." 

            Jor brushed past them, burning with rage and adrenaline. It was thrilling almost, to step into danger with a title that struck fear. Cassandra and Bull followed her, silent.