(For those of you interested in precisely what this story is, I am basically rewriting Dragon Age if George R.R. Martin handled it, in much the same style as A Song Of Ice And Fire. That means I will be using multiple point of view characters, be exploring several different locations at once, and try to explore Dragon Age from a different perspective. But, first off, we do the prologue that sets up the basic evil threat of the series with an unimportant character, destined to be killed off. Enjoy!)

Prologue

Pick awoke to the stench of shit and blood, and knew his time was at an end.

The shit came from the heaps of dung in the corner of the tent, laid by Pick himself and countless other prisoners. They festered there, old and horrid, flies swarming all around the black and brown and gray pile. The blood came from the gash on Pick's face, blood that had seeped all over his forehead and cheeks, crusted and stinking in its own right. Whenever Pick opened his mouth to take a breath, he could taste the blood upon his tongue, and always started to spit or cough. Anything to get the wretched taste out. Of course, when the nights were long, Pick had no food or drink.

He only had the shit and the blood.

Might as well live like the savages. Pick had been stuck in this tent for days, and the Chasind seemed content to let him rot. They fed him once a day, threw swamp water on his head when he asked for a drink, and otherwise left him there, left him all alone, with only fleas, flies, and shit for company. He had tried to get up, several times, but his injury had left him weak and feverish, and every movement off the ground made his head pound and his heart stop.

He would have given his right arm for a bowl of soup. He would have given his left arm for a pail of saltwater. He would have given away his feet for an actual mattress instead of the lice infested blankets he had now, blankets that were now stained and stank with piss. He would have cut off his cock for a nice breath of fresh air, for a flash of sunlight, for a warm noon day, but no one seemed to be asking for it.

The only thing that the Chasind had to offer him was this tent, a nasty chill, and mist. Mist, mist, mist, until you've gotten sick of the color gray. The mist crept into the tent at night and wrapped around him like an ice cold lover. The mist flooded into the tent during the day and suffocated him, filling his eyes and ears with fog, pressing down on his ribs and lungs until it hurt to breathe. He wept during those moments, wept painful and pitiful tears, with only the mist and the bugs and the shit for company.

This particular morning seemed no different, as Pick awoke with a start to discover, oh joy of joys, that they were in the middle of another thick fog. His breathing was erratic, panicked, as he tried to sort through the nightmare he had just experienced. But the details escaped him as he lay there, dressed in only a tattered loincloth, his pale and pink flesh exposed to the chill winds of the Korcari Wilds. Eventually, Pick managed to settle his ragged breathing down, squeezing his eyes shut and reminding himself of happier times.

Happier times. Pick could hardly consider the rest of his life as a happier time, but tried to focus on the pleasant memories. Of drawing a bow for the first time, of picking his first pocket, of biting into a sweet red apple as sea spray flecked his face, surrounded on all sides by his childhood friends. The actual events surrounding each memory were less than enjoyable, but Pick would have given anything to go back a year into his past. He would have given anything to be away from here, away from this stupid tent and away from the fucking savages.

He heard the tent buckle and shift as another gust of wind hit the fabric, heard the cloth billowing and flapping as the air assaulted it. The wind in the Wilds was deadly, dangerous. It cleaved at you like a sword, attacked you endlessly like a barbarian, and weighed you down like a boulder upon your back. The Chasind told stories of men flayed alive by the ferocious winds down south, but Pick scarcely wanted to find out if that was true. He found it difficult enough staying alive this far north.

The tent moved and danced about yet again, but Pick realized that it wasn't the wind. There had been footsteps outside, large and heavy footsteps, and another man breathing desperately in the cold winds. Pick was facing away from the entrance and exit of the tent, and feared to roll about on his side. What was he going to see? An angry shaman, with blood upon his face and a knife aimed for Pick's heart? A barbarian axe man, swinging his weapon down upon Pick with a lustful howl? Receiving release from this never ending torment would suit Pick just fine, but not if that meant being in further pain.

Do it, you stupid shit. At least face death with some dignity. That was Father talking again, old and mad in his last days, the sickness burning away at his withered old face.

Letting out a low groan, Pick rolled over on the wrecked blanket, turning his gaze upon the Chasind now towering before him. It was the same Chasind from before, Pick realized, the Chasind that always entered the tent. A big, dark-skinned man, with a wild shock of black hair upon his large head and red markings upon his face. This barbarian was huge, even given the tough nature of the Chasind, and dressed in ragged strips of leather and thick fur. The barbarian turned his grey eyes upon Pick, frowning, with the hint of a storm bubbling in his gaze.

"Get up. Get up, or else I'll kill you now." A polite ser, he is.

Pick was an outlaw, a fugitive, wanted by the King and the rest of Ferelden for crimes against the crown, but that didn't stop him from trembling at the words of the barbarian. "Please…" he mumbled, shaking upon the ground. "Don't hurt me."

The Chasind continued to frown as he bent over, slipping one iron arm under Pick's armpit and heaving him up with the strength of castle forged steel. Pick whimpered with pain as his head started to spin, and it took him a few agonizing seconds to plant his knees firmly upon the ground. It took him even longer to stand up and get out of the tent, but Pick had enough of punishment for a lifetime. If he was to face an end here, any sort of resolution or freedom, he was eager to get to it.

That didn't stop him from retching upon the ground once he had gotten out of the tent, but it kept him going even after his belly exploded in protest.

They watched him as he was marched through the village, their eyes angry and filled with sullen menace. The Chasind didn't like having him up and about through their home, which suited Pick just fine. I don't want to be here either, you dumb pricks. Go fuck some more toads, leave me alone.

They dressed much the same way as the barbarian that now dragged Pick around the village: in warm furs, in scavenged leather, in anything that they liked to wear. Some Chasind didn't even wear clothes at all, preferring to strut their cocks and cunts and breasts about in the icy breeze. It came with being savages, Pick could only guess as he was hauled about through the village. Some of the women he took a second glance at, but they glared daggers at him and spit upon his feet as he struggled past.

But they all had one thing in common: brands, markings, tattoos, they all were adorned in some way with ink and blood and mud. Some markings showed the graceful eagle, spreading both wings across the face like it was about to take off and sail away from the skin. Some markings showed a dark storm cloud upon the forehead, raining and thundering down the cheeks of the marked man or woman in question. And some of them were indecipherable to Pick, which suit him just fine. I don't care what shit you've got smeared all over your face, just don't do it to me.

To call the Chasind settlement a village would be a compliment. It was situated in the middle of a bloody swamp, surrounded on all sides by the dark and imposing forest of the Korcari wilds. Most of the village was set up on a narrow piece of black land, with dead soil and wilted grass that proved somewhat stable, which was preferable to standing in swamp water and getting caught in a treacherous bog. That didn't stop some idiots from building their huts directly on top of the marsh, with only a few precarious wooden stilts preventing them from getting sunk and waterlogged in the swamp. Granted, Pick had never actually seen this happen, but it was bound to at some point.

The rest of the village could be described as such: huts and huts and huts, with only a few scarce tents to make the difference. Pick saw a cart or two dotting the perimeter of the camp, but otherwise didn't see any means of transport for the Chasind to use. There were no horses, no dogs, no rats, and no birds.

Walking about the Chasind camp was like walking through a graveyard, walking through the empty carcass of a wasted settlement, greeted only by the occasional sight of a starved and gloomy human marching through the grass, worry etched upon their face like they was made of stone. It was not a heartening place, to be sure.

And always, always, there was the damned mist.

The barbarian marched Pick towards the shaman's hut, followed by the rest of the small village, like a pack of vultures circling around a fresh kill. They were anxious for something, Pick dimly realized as his captor hauled him, dragged him, and pulled him over the ground like a heavy sack of dirt. They were waiting for something to happen, and that unknown something sent a chill across his spine.

The shaman, whose name was impossible for Pick to replicate, was situated on the far end of the camp, where the air seemed colder and the day seemed darker. The hut probably classified as a palace for the Chasind, what with it being wide enough to hold two beds and tall enough to grace the lowest branch on the neighbouring tree.

The shaman was the ultimate power in the Chasind tribe, as he had learned through guesswork and his own intuition (the barbarian had explained it to him on the first day of his imprisonment). A decision that involved the shaman must be something big, and Pick could only fervently hope that it meant his release. If he could just get away from these fucking primitives and their idea of medicine, he could potentially survive the next week.

Oh, who was he kidding? He was doomed.

The shaman was waiting for Pick in front of her home, amidst the totems and small statues that were clustered about the ground like grave markers. They were each distinct, each depicting some new image or animal that signified the symbol that they represented. They boasted of a powerful, tefrrible pantheon of wild gods that the Chasind worshipped fervently. Pick couldn't remember the name of a single one of them, and cared far less for them than he had for even the Chantry in Denerim. And he had hated the Chantry in Denerim, and went out of his way to piss into the collection boxes that the Chanters assembled every month or so. Right after he robbed them, of course.

The shaman herself was a small woman, all old and thin and wasted away, barely a walking corpse and more a ghost, a suggestion of a person that might have been. She was short, for one thing, and had a terrible limp that she refused to fix with a cane or walking stick. Her muscles seemed to have simply disappeared beneath her skin, leaving her arms and legs as sticks of bone covered with old and dried flesh. She was mostly bald, with a few thin slivers of white hair coming out from behind her ears. Her face played the gracious host to a vast array of pictures, icons, and symbols, all made of faded brown ink, which would have been quite legible had her many wrinkles not obscured key details in the images. She was creased, and ugly, and old, old, old. But when she fixed her milky white eyes upon him, Pick felt a dark surge of menace within his breast. Oh, get me out of here. Maker, get me out of here.

Pick was in a horrible knot by the time that the barbarian finally dragged him before the shaman, and so the burly Chasind growled in annoyance, heaving Pick up above the ground and landing him on his feet. That sent Pick's stomach into another queasy direction, but Pick was able to contain himself. Barely. The barbarian turned his gaze upon the shaman, and offered a slight bow of the head.

And then the barbarian left his side, and Pick immediately missed his presence. Not for the great company, mind you, but more for the fact that Pick was liable to fall over flat onto his face without some big idiot to provide stability for him. But Pick managed to hold his ground, with some difficulty. With great difficulty, to be precise.

After a few moments of silent appraisal, the shaman slowly opened her mouth. Pick reeled mentally as he saw the two rows of pale pink gums, absent of any teeth, flapping back and forth at him, but he only flinched, and did not fall over. A good start. Meanwhile, the shaman began speaking, with a dry and raspy voice. "You should be honoured, Fereldan. We entertain few northern people here, you being the first in a long, long time."

"I would be honoured more if I didn't wake up to shit every morning." Turning his head back over his shoulder, Pick offered a weak and mocking smile towards his captor. "And I've figured out that the swamp water you give me is actually piss."

If frowns could kill, Pick would be dead.

But the shaman could only laugh, shaking her head in sick, sick amusement. "Very good, Fereldan! Very good. We figured you stupider, but the gods have given you some wit after all!" She nodded her head towards the barbarian, and Pick suddenly had a very good idea about where this was going.

The boot into the base of his spine came quickly, suddenly, without warning, and Pick could only yelp in startled pain as he crashed face first into the ground, landing at the shaman's feet. Attempting to get up again proved fruitless, as the barbarian stepped forward and placed his foot squarely between Pick's shoulder blades, preventing him from escaping this agonizing torment. The pain was back in full force, and Pick could only barely manage staying conscious.

The shaman, the crotchety old bitch, just kept laughing. "Very good! Very good!" Leaning forwards, she spit upon the back of Pick's head, cackling in her depraved manner as she did so. The saliva was warm and moist against his skin, disgusting him and his upset stomach to no end.

The strange thing was that the shaman was the only one laughing. The other Chasind, the ones that now flocked about the hut and watched the whole event as a ragged mob, didn't seem to be enjoying this. Pick would have expected laughter on their end, a few jeers or taunts thrown in for good measure, but no such insults were thrown at him. They simply stared, in their quiet and stoic manner, as if they were in prayer.

It was alright, though: the shaman laughed enough for the whole tribe. Wiping away bloody tears of mirth from her white eyes, the shaman grinned and smirked and smiled down at him. "I wonder, do you like being murdered for a change?"

This is the first I've heard of any murder. Spitting out a mouthful of dirt and mud, Pick struggled to speak against the weight of the barbarian's foot. "Please!" He cried. "I'm just a poacher!"

Now the shaman stopped laughing, and that set Pick's heart pounding. There were only a few seconds of silence, where she stared at him with naked hatred, naked contempt, with veins pulsing in her wispy little skull. And then the shaman gave a ferocious little war cry of her own, and started to lash out at Pick with her tiny feet, hitting him with surprising strength.

"Liar! Fereldan dog! Filthy savage!" Again and again, her little boot smashed into his face, into his forehead, into his shut eyes, into his crooked nose, into his broken teeth. After a quick but vicious beating, the shaman eventually tired of the kicks, and stood there, panting and seething in anger over him. Pick groaned and pushed his face against the ground, rubbing his bruised skin against the grass to get some measure of comfort. Instead, he only discovered that his nose was freshly broken, dark blood seeping from the nostrils in a torrent. Shit. Busted by the little old grandmother.

The shaman must have commanded the barbarian to release him, as the foot upon his back was suddenly lifted up and away, with no small measure of relief on Pick's part. But he could not get a chance to rest, as the old shaman suddenly bent down and gripped his head with her long and thin fingers. It felt like a skeleton was holding his face, all bone and chill purpose, no warmth to be found in the touch.

She stared down into his eyes, her own flooded with dark intentions and angry fires, like a ghoul possessed with some last quest of vengeance. It caused Pick to tremble in her hands, to shake and quiver in fear as he wondered what he could have possibly done to deserve this. Being held captive by the Chasind was bad enough, but tortured to death by an old hag was more than he could handle.

"Where are my daughters?" The shaman hissed, spittle spraying against his skin. "Where are my daughters?" She repeated, her fingertips clawing into his temples. "Killed them, raped them, skinned them! Where are they, Fereldan?"

"I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOUR FUCKING DAUGHTERS ARE!" Pick roared, his face turning red despite the black and blue bruises. "I DON'T KNOW THEM, OR YOU, OR ANYONE IN THIS FUCKING TRIBE!" The shaman seemed stunned enough by his sudden howling that he continued. "AND I DIDN'T KILL THEM, OR RAPE THEM, OR SKIN THEM! BUT I WISH I COULD DO THAT NOW, YOU FUCKING CHASIND BITCH!"

That was all Pick could manage before his foot was suddenly yanked away, his body being dragged off forcefully from the shaman. At first, he knew relief, glad to be away from that horrid woman if only by a hair's breadth. But then he was flipped about on the ground, landing upon his back with little grace, the fresh fires of pain igniting upon his skin again, and he remembered despair and hopelessness.

"Kill him!" cried the shaman, curling and twisting her hands into tight, compact fists. "Kill him!" chanted the Chasind horde, finally finding a cause to become passionate for. "Kill him!" shouted the Maker, and his father, and his mother, and his friends, all determined for him to be wiped away from the face of Thedas like the insect that he was.

The barbarian let out an angry growl and pounced upon Pick, jumping onto his chest and knocking the wind out of him. The iron grip of the Chasind was locked about Pick's throat, his burly thighs straddling his sides tightly, cracking ribs and breaking bones as the end drew near. Pick choked and fought for all his worth, thrashing his limbs about at the barbarian atop him, but it was no use. He was too weak, too tired, and too useless for such a task. And this Chasind was too strong for him to fight, too strong for him to resist.

His vision darkening, his breath absent, his heart frozen in his breast, Pick struggled to take in fresh air, struggled to find the sun amidst the heavy gray mist that surrounded him now. He struggled and fought, but it was no use. Death had come to claim him.

And, as the darkness was about to take him, Pick relived the nightmare he had experienced the night before.

Black sky. Red ash. Fire. Fire through shadows, burning red and orange and purple, burning from the dragon's mouth. Spines, bones, teeth, fangs. Coming in the night, coming for me. Steel and sickness and shadows, one monstrous horde. Coming in the night, coming for Ferelden. Coming in the night, coming for me.

A horn sounded.

Beyond the angry grunts and growls of the barbarian atop him, and the sound of his own life draining in his ears, Pick could barely hear the noise, so quiet was it to him. But the Chasind heard it, and he was surprised to hear it. A look of confusion crossed the barbarian's face, his grip loosening for just one brief second. It was enough for Pick to wrestle the big meaty hands away from his throat, desperately drawing in a few gasps of ragged air when his windpipe was clear. Color soon returned to his vision, and his heart gradually started to beat once again within his breast.

The big Chasind did not attempt to strangle him again; he just sat up on his knees and turned his head about in either direction. Something was perplexing him, as it was the rest of the tribe. As Pick wormed his way out from under the barbarian, his chest heaving with exertion, he glanced at the shaman, but she too was staring out into the distance, a sudden fear having seized her wits as well.

It was only then that he heard the screams.

They were subtle, barely noticeable as his heart pounded endlessly in his ears, thankful to still be active and alive, but once Pick heard the barest trace of them, it was all he could hear. The chill wind buffeted them anew with a fresh assault, and it carried with it the sound of terrified screaming, pained screaming, and bestial screaming. There was no immediate source of it, yet: another thick fog had descended over the village, and Pick could scarcely see beyond the large crowd of Chasind tribe members.

But the screams were there. They made his sweat run thick and his palms to shake, so horrifying were they. Pick had heard the screams of a man in pain, heard the screams of the tortured as they breathed out their last. But screams during a battle were new to him, and there was most definitely a battle accompanying the screams: sounds of steel clashing, of angry roaring, of bodies being ripped open, of blood hitting the ground in a torrent.

After a few seconds of stunned listening, the shaman seemed to wake up, albeit to a terrifying nightmare. "REGROUP!" She howled into the din of battle. "REGROUP AND RETREAT!"

Everything descended into chaos after that.

Pick was too slow to start running with the rest of them, and so he could only stumble after the retreating forms of the Chasind as they descended into the fog. It seemed a well-practiced, well rehearsed manoeuvre: one second, they were there, and the next they were gone, scattering away like leaves on the wind. Pick, meanwhile, trudged aimlessly through the dirt and muck and swamp water, too confused to understand what was going on.

But at the very least, he was thankful. Something had come along and saved him at the last minute, saving him from an early and untimely death. He wondered what the hell could possibly be going on to do such a thing, but at the very least he could thank the Maker and his good fortune. I'm alive! I'm alive! I'm alive! He cheered endlessly in his head, a sudden smile crossing his filthy and damaged features.

He was distracted, and that made it easy for the shadow to find him. When Pick realized that he was being followed, it was not through the instincts of a battle born solider. He heard the loud and large predator chasing after him, splashing thunderously through the marsh and churning the ground under its wake, heard it with the ears of the suddenly doomed prey.

He started running, but it was no use. The shadow was faster than him, stronger than him. Pick scrambled and struggled through the swamp, darting through patches of bog and barging through the undergrowth, but the shadow was gaining on him easily. He risked a few glances back over his shoulder, but each time he was only rewarded with a dark and indiscernible figure, its features lost to the endless mist. And each time he looked back, the thing got closer.

The chase wore on and on and on, lasting for days in Pick's mind, but only a few minutes in reality. It burned Pick's lungs and ached his tired body to sheer agony, but Pick wore on. He wore on, eager to not waste the life he had been rewarded with by the Maker.

It was ended when Pick stumbled upon a hidden plant root, deep underneath the swamp water, that caused him to fall into the marsh. Icy cold water rose up to meet him, rushed down his throat, pierced deep into his stomach. Pick choked and thrashed and screamed in the black murk, hands outstretched and searching for something to latch onto, but to no avail. He was lost, beneath the dark pools of the bog, surrendered to the insatiable evil of the Korcari Wilds.

A hand that burnt like cold iron touched his back, grasped his tunic, pulled him out of the water. Pick could scarcely believe his luck, and choked out the swamp water that had run down his mouth, sputtering and swallowing and thankful to be alive. Once his throat was clear, Pick managed a few words before he turned about to face his rescuer. "Thank you…"

Pale face. White, dead eyes. Black veins. Sick grin. Flash of steel.

Death.