And here is installment three of Impending Darkness. A huge thank you to everyone who alerted or favorited. And a very special thank you to my reviewer from the last chapter, SpartanGoddess, whose review made my day and prodded this update. I hope you all enjoy!
And not that there was any doubt, but just so we have it covered for the rest of the fic, I own nothing. Period.
The Wilds were terrifying.
I've never liked forests. The terrain is too unpredictable, with roots, plants, and other objects sporadically strewn around, as well as uneven ground. But the Wilds seemed determined to disable me, and I had to walk very cautiously to avoid tripping while at the same time seeming like I wasn't making as much of an effort as I actually was. Looking vulnerable would make me undoubtedly more so than I was. Then there were the noises, all of the entirely inhuman sounds coming from the more dense concentrations of trees. And then there was the carnage. Corpses, human, animals, and otherwise, lay everywhere, often dismembered, and always horrifying to look at. I struggled to suppress the fear that Fergus would be among them.
I was relieved when we finally came across someone who was alive, but he was badly wounded. The state he was in, I was surprised that he could even speak, let alone utter a warning. I heard Ser Jory stiffen behind me, and guessed that he and Daveth would need some convincing to continue. Not like I really wanted to go farther into the forest, but it needed to be done. Becoming a Grey Warden was the only thing that gave me the momentum to keep going, and I had nothing more to lose. If this was what it required, then so be it. And for the moment, I was more concerned with the wounded man lying on the ground in front of us.
"We can't take you back, but we can at least bandage you up before you leave," I told him, and looked at Alistair.
"I have some bandages in my pack," Alistair said, giving them to me. I bent over to bandage the man, and then helped him up.
"Will you be able to make it?" I asked the soldier quietly.
"I don't know," he replied.
"Here, have this," I said, giving him a potion from my pack. "This should be enough to give you the strength to get back to camp, where they can heal you properly." Or at least, I hoped it would. But if he believed it, it might give him hope enough to make it back.
"Thank you," he said before walking off in the direction of camp.
I turned to face the others, who, with the exception of Alistair, were just as anxious as I had guessed them to be. Alistair and I tried to mollify them, and eventually they calmed enough so that we could move on. It caught my attention when Alistair said that Grey Wardens could sense darkspawn. That would help me fight them quite a bit. As we started to move on, I caught Alistair giving me a strange look, but he quickly looked away when he noticed that I saw him.
The farther we got into the Wilds, the more carnage there was. We were obviously getting close to wherever the darkspawn were. When we came across three men, hanging, I felt inclined to agree with Alistair.
"The whole damn Wilds is excessive," I muttered to myself.
But I quickly realized that everything that we had seen so far was nothing when compared to the darkspawn. They were truly monstrous, hideous creatures, and I almost froze in terror when I saw them. My instincts kicked in, though, and I had made it very clear that out of the options, flight was not available. So I fought, adrenaline rushing through my veins as my body went into hyper drive, my heart pounding against my chest. But after I had slain one, after I had proven their mortality, the terror that they possessed fell from its mythic proportions to a smaller, easier to handle amount.
It hardly took an effort to collect three vials of darkspawn blood with how many had attacked us. Then all we had to do was retrieve the treaties and we could go back to Duncan. Unfortunately, no task seemed to be as simple as I had first thought, and the texts were not there where they were supposed to be. We did end up retrieving them, however, after meeting Morrigan and her mother, a bit of talking, a bit of walking, and more than enough of accusing people of being 'The Witch of the Wilds'. Apparently we're the jumpy, superstitious type of folk. For all I know, though, Daveth could be right.
Coming back to camp meant coming back to the Joining ritual. Ser Jory and Daveth seemed to become more and more anxious with each step, and I myself was definitely feeling more than apprehensive. I listened to them both worry as we waited for Duncan.
"Calm down guys," I told them, "whatever happens, it won't make it any better if we worry." I wish I could have told them that everything would be alright, but I didn't believe that myself. How could it be, when my whole family was dead except for my brother, who I couldn't even find?
Alistair stood there, silent the whole time. His face was close to expressionless. I suddenly wondered just how bad this Joining was, if it had driven him silent and his face blank, such a strange look for a man whose emotions seemed to play out openly on his face. Or perhaps I had the wrong impression of him.
But the Joining, as it turns out, was as bad as I had thought, or even worse, claiming the life of Daveth, and also Ser Jory's, albeit indirectly. I cringed when Duncan had killed him, and the image I had started to build up of Duncan shattered. It was replaced by an image of a man who was driven by necessity. A true Grey Warden. Nevertheless, I understood.
And then it was my turn. I knew that I should be more frightened about this, more hesitant. I should fear my death. However, that lack of fear was the benefit of having nothing to lose. It didn't matter to me, whichever way this turned out.
I took the cup from Duncan and drank the darkspawn blood without hesitation.
It was every bit as vile and disgusting as the darkspawn themselves, and I could feel the taint spreading through my body. It felt like every limb was on fire. Then the world around me was gone, replaced by quick, violent images of nightmarish proportions. True terror filled my very being as I recognized a dragon. And then everything turned violently to black.
