Codex text
Donnen left it to his captain and a dozen of Kirkwall's finest to drag Wagner and his thugs to the stocks. The heavy air gave up and turned into sheets of rain. The ancient grey stone stairs leading up to Lowtown turned into a waterfall. Donnen slogged up the narrow passage, boots squelching with every step.
He almost didn't hear the ambush coming.
As he reached the top of the stairs, a faint rasp of steel made him throw himself aside into a vegetable seller's table. A sword swung through the air where he'd been and chimed against the rock wall.
Donnen fumbled at his scabbard and just managed to catch the second blow with his sword. He had one moment as they locked blades to recognize his attacker. The younger man had shed his guard uniform for dark leathers, and his left arm now ended in a bandaged stump, but there was no mistaking him.
"Jevlan?"
"Where is the Blade of Hessarian?" Jevlan recovered from the parried blow to slash at Donnen's legs.
He dodged back, slipping and nearly stumbling ass-first down the stairs. "It was you. The inside man. You're the one who killed De Favre." Donnen lunged at the recruit. Jevlan quickly moved to block, but Donnen's blade sliced his arm, drawing blood.
"Give me the sword! I know that pirate hag gave it to you!" Jevlan swung a series of hard slashes, trying to break Donnen's guard or knock him down the stairs. In the darkness and the driving rain, the guardsman struggled to see his attacker.
Still, Donnen grinned. "You left it at the quay. I guess you ran off without it when the lady took your hand off. Not my fault you picked a fight you couldn't win." He tried to edge away from the stairs, but the rookie kept him pinned between the vegetable stall and a fall to his death.
Jevlan lunged, his blade punching through Donnen's armor just below his ribs, but the recruit slipped on the wet stone during his attack and stumbled into his enemy. Donnen shoved him away—and over the stairs. His fall ended with a sickening crack of broken bones.
Donnen drew a ragged breath and pulled Jevlan's sword from his side, trying not to slip on his own blood. The Chantry was a long way off.
