In Search of a Wolf - The Elves of Fen'Harel Book 1 (Dragon Age)

Slavery on the Coast

It was cold on the Storm Coast. Great grey waves crested and slammed down on the rocks and slimy beaches, dark with seaweed, the sand coarse and swollen with water. The wind was salty, fresh and cutting. 

Kirkwall was somewhere across that wide sea. It made Laisa wistful. For a time she had been happy, across that water. 

Now she and her fellow captives were living in huts atop the cliffs. There was nowhere to run to. From that point, they could see for miles around the coast in any direction; no hope of escape. She didn't know where they would be taken next.

The Templars had marched them from the Hinterlands after Corypheus was defeated. She had been allowed to leave the stone keep and watch as the great dragons flew overhead, along with Malika and Eagan. 

She wished she'd been there, at Skyhold, been able to help save the world. She wondered if Arana and Nanin were there, if they had lived. The news of the Inquisition's victory had trickled down to them in the valley, and thus the Templars had decided to move somewhere less conspicuous, and taken their slaves with them.

There were a handful of them: ten in total. Three human woman, five human men, one dwarven woman and herself. It could have been worse, Laisa consoled herself. When first they had taken her, she had expected rape and murder, but instead found herself locked up, and working as a cleaner, scrubbing stone floors, and succumbing to an occasional beating. 

They didn't touch her otherwise, or Malika, the dwarf. They weren't human, and thus regarded as inferior and unworthy of notice.

More bandits had joined her captors, and thus there were around thirty men who dragged the captives from their cells to leave. They had been marched for many miles on foot, pulling along carts of goods across dangerous terrain, dressed in the ragged clothes they'd been captured in. 

Eagan had kept pulling her back onto her feet when exhaustion claimed her, and had even carried her for a while on his back when her feet bled.

She had been frightened when he first approached her. Shem were still utterly unfamiliar, but he was dressed in a torn Inquisition uniform. "Hi there. Have you eaten yet?" He'd asked, holding out a stale bread roll.

"Thanks." She had whispered, taking it. He had sat beside her while she ate in stoic silence. That was Eagan all over. He was quiet, with a bland pleasant face. He told her about being a scout for the Inquisition, an infiltrator and explorer. He never spoke unless he felt the situation required it, but there was a kindness within him that she valued.

Malika was well...Malika. She'd been with the Carta in Kirkwall apparently, a criminal gang, and worked as a fence for smuggled goods to and from Orzammar. She'd fled the war there, like thousands of others, and fallen into the hands of the bandits. It didn't seem to faze her at all: the cold and damp, the poor food and threat of death. Instead, she retained an easy humour.

"This is colder than the shrivelled heart of an Arishok." Malika quipped, joining Laisa on the cliff. "You'd think they wanted us dead and not as helpless workers."

"Maybe." Laisa rolled her eyes. She had fresh bruises on her face after spilling some beer two nights earlier. "It'd be a mercy, if just not to hear another seagull." The raucous din of the birds was driving her insane.

"Eagan and the other men were mining today." Malika told her, "Down with that red lyrium stuff. It's bad. Like really bad. You saw what it did to Meredith right, the commander? She took her stony personality to a whole new level."

"We have to get out of here." Laisa said, "Before they die down there."

"Good luck with that." Malika smirked, "Come on, before they drag us in." She was stocky, and strong, dark blond hair clipped up, with strong features and green eyes that danced with eternal merriment.