Author's Notes: Completed for the March Minor Character Challenge: Tamlen on the Dragon Age Fan Fiction Writer's Group over on Facebook. Contains some potentially disturbing images of a badly corrupted and decaying elf.
Another hunt, another kill.
The others tore into the prey, their claws tearing away white flesh, gorging themselves on the raw muscle underneath. The mouths dripped with fresh blood, still warm from the kill.
Tamlen felt his stomach wrench with disgust.
But it also wrenched with the hunger.
The dead Dalish hunter at the bottom of the pile of shrieks was so unalike to him once. Or her. Mahariel.
His hands were cut and bloody, but he could hardly feel them any more. The patches of black, corrupted flesh were growing larger. His fingernails had fallen off as he scratched at the itching, stinking, dying skin days earlier. At first he had clawed at the black splotches until he peeled away chunks of his arm, leaving stinking sores that burned in the air and damp as if they were each on fire.
As the days dragged on, his skin had become hard and dry like wood. When he went to scratch again, it was his nails that finally gave way.
His blonde hair had started coming out in clumps. The flesh across his face was cracked and stretching, a dull aching pain. As his skin shrunk, it pulled back off his eyes and his lips, revealing more of his jaw and his teeth.
His teeth were blackening, but they remained strong. He chewed without thinking. He had chewed the insides of his cheeks. He bit off the tip of his tongue a week ago without even realizing.
The crimson blood that leaked between his lips had tasted good.
The hunger was so deep, but he dared not eat. The plants that he had once eaten now tasted so bitter and foul that he had to spit them out. The smell of cookfires now filled him with dread and fear instead of comfort. Fire burned. Fire meant camps. Camps had fighters. Fighters would hurt him. He didn't want to die. Survive.
The thunderous music pounded in his temples.
There was also the chittering and noise of the hive, the collective thoughts of the darkspawn around him, constantly flooding his mind with thoughts, fears, commands.
Tamlen was drowned in their noise. He had tried to cover his ears to block out the sound, but it was inside him. He pressed so hard on the sides of his head that he could feel the brittle bones of his ear starting to crumble under the pressure. The noise didn't go away, but the searing pain as he destroyed himself flooded louder into his mind, at least for a time.
I am Urthemiel. Come unto me.
The message pounded through his consciousness every few hours, not spoken in the tongue of the elves or the shemlen but clearly understood, drowning out all else in his mind.
There had been other bits that had flooded through, small phrases that seemed to make sense. Elf. Grey Warden. Forest. Attack. Ambush. Kill. Kill. Kill.
There were pictures when he slept, sometimes, if it was actually sleep. The great, rotting dragon was always there, leathery wings spread wide to the sky, bellowing flame and screaming victory. I am Urthemiel. Come unto me.
There were other images. Fires burning deep underground. Humans running, chased, falling, dying. Fields sickened black with Blight. Elves fighting, dying.
She was there in his dreams. Mahariel. Her blade slashed the darkspawn. A shemlen man with her in silver armor. A shemlen woman with ruby red hair. An old mage. A wilder. A dog. A stone statue. A hulking brute. An elf. A dwarf. Enemy. Kill. Find. Kill. Kill. Kill.
The shrieks cried triumphantly into the night as they squabbled over the dripping meat and bone of a leg they had severed. The largest peeled away the leather armor and clothing like a child carefully unwrapping a present before sinking its fangs deeply into the bloody thigh. The others skulked around like wolves, waiting for their leader to spare them the scraps of the hunt.
Tamlen could smell the hot, sticky blood even from where he stood. His mouth dripped slather and his stomach twisted and growled.
The hunger ran so deep. He could not eat, not that. His body ached and longed. His thoughts were all screaming to eat, to feast, the spoils of the hunt.
More elves. Close. The thought came in clearly. Young. Tender.
The shrieks turned their heads east and sniffed the air. The alpha let out a slow, whining whistle. Not now. Eat brothers. More blood can wait.
Tamlen shut his eyes tightly and rocked his head back and forth. He should not be able to hear that. He did not want to hear. Go away. Get out of my head.
The alpha's head snapped and looked at Tamlen. Its lip receded, exposing more of its fangs and it growled. It growled at him. The others hissed between jagged and uneven fangs.
Fear prickled what good skin Tamlen had left. He could feel a pulsing ache in his neck, that blackest patch of flesh at the artery, pumping the sickened blood deeper into him. No! No! he thought, fear flooding. He bent and cowered, turning away from the shrieks.
Weak.
The alpha went back to tearing elf flesh from the meaty thigh.
It follows. We be rid of it. Another shriek challenged. It slithered up, its young, wicked claws dragging against the cool dirt of the forest floor. It not us.
It leapt, jumping atop Tamlen. Its claws tore at his belly and its teeth bit down deeply into his shoulder. He could hardly feel it, except for the pressure upon his bone, a dull scraping. There should be pain.
Tamlen's fear surged to strength. Like a beast, he grabbed the shriek's head, clawing his bony fingers across its neck, ripping the black, stinking flesh away like wet moss off a tree. He pulled its flailing head, locking his teeth around the pointed elf ear that remained. He bit, tearing flesh and cartilidge between his teeth.
The tearing in his abdomen ceased and he pushed up his body, throwing the smaller animal off him. Tamlen rolled atop it, smashing his fists down, smashing bits of bone and blood into the carpet of leaves. The shriek stopped squirming in an instant, but he continued to punch down, crushing the black bits into the soil until there was nothing hard left.
The others chittered gleefully in his mind.
It kills. Good kill.
It kills well.
Was weak anyway. Needed killing.
Slowing us down. Not worth its claws.
Tamlen looked at his hands, his own black flesh ripped and cut by pieces of skull and teeth he had flattened into the dirt. His guts roiled.
A strong hand pulled him from behind, the alpha lifting him off the dead shriek. Good. Strong. Eat.
The shriek offered the still bubbling carcass. The other shrieks backed away as the alpha spread threatening urges at the others. Yours. Victory.
Tamlen stumbled forward, toward the body. What was once a hunter was now a mangled mess of entrails, blood, organs. The leather armor, the wooden bow, the carefully fletched arrows had all been pulled away, discarded. Bits of vallaslin still could be seen between the hundred slashes the shrieks had cut into his face.
I can't. He is Dalish. I am Dalish. I will not eat.
Weak. Dead. Not it. Eat. Strong.
Tamlen's stomach grumbled. The blood smelled so good. His mouth dripped. His arms and legs ached. The alpha stood behind him, urging him forward. The darkspawn pressed on his shoulders, forcing him to his knees before the carcass.
Urthemiel needs. Needs strong. Live. Strong. Need.
The patchy corruption at Tamlen's neck pulsed stronger. His hands, though cut and bloodied, did not ache. They felt, right. The nerves tingled, numb, but alive. The fear faded, replaced by calm.
A pang punched his gut again. The hunger. The hunger was so deep.
Us. Clan. Safe. Victory.
Tamlen lowered his hands down, black and blood-slickened fingers dipping into the open chest cavity, in between the shattered ribs. He fingers locked around the still-warm heart.
He pulled. The connecting veins and arteries snapped like weak thread under his strength.
Yours. Earn. Strong.
The mirror had been so tantalizing. There had been people moving on the other side, he swore. Mahariel said no. He touched it. A surge of power and sickness struck his heart like a keen arrow.
Mahariel was gone.
Enemy. Enemy. Kill.
No, he loved her once. Quiet longing. She didn't even know.
Find. Kill. Enemy.
He was Dalish. No, he was sick. Tainted. Corrupt. Lost. Marahiel was … she was …
Enemy. Kill. Find. Ambush. Kill. Warden.
His stomach turned as he pulled the heart closer to its body. His body was afire with delight. His guts quivered with anticipation. His tongue flitted wildy between his teeth.
He looked at the blood and broken bits of bone still clinging to his hands.
I am strong.
His stomach rumbled, but not with disgust. The hunger was so deep. So consuming.
Tamlen closed his eyes.
I'm sorry, Lyna.
His teeth ripped ravenously into the heart.