A/N: This was originally posted serially on tumblr, over the course of a week, in celebration of Halloween. But you guys get it all together, at once. :) Hope you enjoy!

And Rise: Chapter 1

"Should we send for the templars, Ser?" Alan asked, the light of his torch flickering as he turned uneasily, glancing down branching corridors, trying to fight off shadows. Cauthrien could hear his breathing, fast and irregular, a counterpoint to her forced slow inhales. She would not panic. She would not fear.

"I doubt that will be necessary," she said as she crept another few feet forward. The passages of the recently unearthed catacombs were too narrow for the Summer Sword, and instead she clutched a lighter, shorter sword, unfamiliar in its particulars. It was not the best of situations, but so little had been since the start of the Blight. An end to the war had not fixed much of anything.

She pressed on. "It's likely empty. And if we do need assistance, it will be the Wardens we go to, not the templars."

Magic, if it haunted these halls, was not something she wanted to think about. Five years ago she would never have let distaste make her ignore a threat, but the Blight had given her practice. As she crept through the crumbling tunnels that stank of earth and dust, she thought only of the mundane. Perhaps there would be dead bodies, long rotted and no more a threat than a clod of dirt. Perhaps there would be slavers, or homeless men and women, or elves who had fled the Alienage. Perhaps there would be darkspawn come back to destroy Denerim. Perhaps there would be a secret cabal of blood mages, and she had made the wrong decision-

"Captain!" Dairene cried out, and Cauthrien spun, torch in hand nearly going out. The woman was pressed flush to one of the walls, staring into the inky dark beyond the fall of their light.

"What is it, lieutenant?"

"I saw something. I did." Her face was pale and her jaw slackened, brows drawn together beneath her helm, and Cauthrien couldn't remember ever seeing her so frightened.

"Alan?" Cauthrien asked, hoping and fearing a second opinion. Dairene did not often lie. Moving closer to her men, she sidestepped them to join Dairene and peer into the gloom. She saw nothing.

"I didn't see anything."

Her jaw tightened. "Any of you?"

There was a chorus of low nos, and Cauthrien frowned. In a way, it would have been easier if they had all seen a threat. Then she would have been certain. As it was, she didn't want to distrust one of her guard, and not Dairene, but the season was late and the specters of the Blight still haunted them all. The rough-hewn walls provided no comfort, no familiar landmarks. They were somewhere beneath the Arl of Denerim's estate, a hundred feet, two hundred beneath the surface.

And it was silent.

"Keep moving," she said, finally, ignoring the murmurings of discontent. They would follow. If they supported her leadership even after what had been done during the war, they would support her here; they knew she would protect them.

She clasped Dairene's shoulder. "Go on," Cauthrien said, "I'll watch behind us."

"Yes, Ser," Dairene responded, and though her hands trembled, she squared her shoulders and jogged off after the others.

Cauthrien lingered. To split off completely was folly, even in empty tunnels; they were not mapped, and to be lost might have been to find death. But she took a few moments to scan the dark.

There was a flicker of shadow and she lifted her sword before her.

"Reveal yourself, on order of the Captain of the Guard," she said, voice betraying the tremor beneath her armor. She stared into the darkness, searching for any other sign of movement. None came.

She waited until the footsteps behind her were almost too far gone, and only then did she begin to retreat. She walked backwards five paces, then ten, and only when nothing echoed but her own breathing did she turn.

There were no footsteps behind her, but she couldn't shake the feeling of being followed.

"Alan!" she called as she caught up with the others. The small group stopped and looked back to her, and in turn she offered them a nod, a smile. "We keep moving," she said. "Is there any sign of another opening?"

"No wind, Ser," he responded, and she nodded, peering forward now instead of back. There were branching paths, but the few they had followed led only to small chambers with niches carved into the walls, old bones and scraps of metal lingering from Maker only knew how long ago.

The main path stretched ever forward.

"But Ser-"

"Yes? Speak freely, Alan," she said, moving to the head of the group with him at her heels. He was a good man - young, but skilled, and he should have been promoted a year ago. Rendon Howe's men filling her ranks had kept her from noticing him - one of the seemingly endless list of frustrations, regrets, and shames of the Blight.

"Perhaps we should turn back?" He was not usually a nervous man, but now he glanced behind her, behind him, and she couldn't fault him for the feeling.

But she was skilled these days at giving unpleasant orders. "No," she said, shaking her head and motioning with a jerk of her chin down the hall before them. "There can't be much more, and as soon as we have cleared the tunnels, they will need to be blocked back up. I will not let this become a warren for further unrest. And it isn't as if daylight will be of any help to us down here." She reached out, brushed fingers against his elbow in a small gesture of support. "We move. Come."

The path stretched ever forward, almost unchanging, but soon it began to widen, out finally into a circular room with another hall leading off the far side. Cauthrien ordered the guard to fan out, and they crept forward, close to the walls, looking for any signs of traps or inhabitants. There were none. There were no footsteps, no fresh bones, no morsels of food. There was no stench of a latrine pit. There was nothing but dust.

When she felt eyes on the back of her neck again, her steps halted and she glanced over her shoulder.

There was nothing.

"Ser!" Alan called, and she turned to see him and Dairene crouching next to what looked like a crudely hewn flight of stairs. It stretched up to the ceiling. In the hallway, it had been almost low enough to touch. Now it was too high to see even with their torches lifted. She moved over to join them, then mounted the first two steps. They were solid.

"Let's see where this goes," she murmured, then called out, "Search the room but move no further!" There were calls of assent in return, and she climbed higher still.

The air grew warmer as she rose, the earth beside her changed in color. Below the torches grew fainter to almost pinpricks. And before her-

The stair spiralled around the room, lifting above the entrances to the two passages below as the ground fell away. She would have wagered that on the way in they had marched only half an hour, an hour at most. How deep had they delved? Her torch lit nothing but wall and step, until, finally, she caught a glimpse of the ceiling. It was studded with skulls, long bones, ribs arranged in spirals, and she drew a sharp breath.

Another step, and she felt the stair give way.

It crumbled fast, and she fell back, step after step as fast as she could without losing her balance. But the damage spread, cracking beneath her, and she lost her footing. There was a great roar as the earth shifted and fell from the wall, and she bit down a shout as dirt bloomed upwards, dust filling the air.

Her torch guttered out just as she felt a hand wrap around her throat and an arm go tight around her waist.