The last time Muirnara had passed down this road was in the late summer, over a year ago. Then, the fields had been yellow with ripe grain, apple trees laden so heavily with fruit that their branches bowed down to the warm soil, Ferelden readying itself to bring in a good harvest, and she had seen none of it, blinded by her own grief. Duncan had forced the pace to Ostagar for fear of Howe's assassins behind them once it was known that she had not died within the castle, making for a gruelling journey that she had been too heartsick to care about. He had told her endless stories as they walked, about older Blights, about the Tevinter Imperium, about the Orlesian occupation, anything he could think of to cut through her numb misery. She would have welcomed death if it had come to her on that road. Little of his words remained with her now, other than one conversation, held over the campfire a day from the old fortress itself. "The Tevinter Imperium built Ostagar long ago to prevent the Wilders from invading the northern lowlands." he had told her. "It's fitting we make our stand here, even if we face a different foe within that forest. The king's forces have clashed with the darkspawn several times, but here is where the bulk of the horde will show itself. There are only a few Grey Wardens within Ferelden at the moment, but all of us are here. This Blight must be stopped here and now. If it spreads to the north, Ferelden will fall."

And now she was returning, over a year later, and Duncan would have grieved to see the truth of his words. Fields that glowed gold last year were now a filthy black, and strange things seemed to writhe in them when glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, but could not be seen by a direct gaze. Burned out houses dotted the blackened fields here and there, as did broken, bare trees. And everywhere was cold, and rapidly getting colder. The sun seemed dimmed, as though the taint clouded the air itself. Not long after they had started on the southward road, it had started sleeting, and gave no hint of letting up.

As soon as she had realised what they were heading into, Muirnara had split the group. Sten, Shale, Oghren, Morrigan and Zevran had been sent back with the Feddicks to make a new camp, near some of the still inhabited settlements northwest of where Lothering had once been, with orders to get rid of everything that they could sell to villagers and restock the stores. Some of the villages even had Chanters Boards still so it was possible the five of them might manage to make a little money as well. Leliana, Muirnara, Loghain and Wynne, bearing a minimum of baggage, and accompanied by Wolf who had refused to be left behind, had set off southwards on the old Imperial Highway. They had brought with them all that could be carried of the party's warm clothing and bedding, but it was questionable whether it was going to be adequate.

"It should not yet be this cold." Wynne was all but invisible under a heavy cloak fashioned of rough cured wolf skins. "We are barely into autumn, the first frosts should be more than two months away yet."

Leliana shrugged. "The sun can barely see down to the ground here. I doubt very much that the seasons have touched this land since Ostagar fell."

Muirnara nodded. "The taint is everywhere - land, water, air." She had felt it growing stronger ever since they turned south, a crawling on the skin like burrs in a shirt, not the directional pull of living darkspawn but something far more nebulous. Judging from Loghain's grim expression he was sensing something very similar. "We cannot use groundwater for drinking here, which means we will have to conserve our stocks with great care. Unless?" She looked enquiringly at Wynne.

Wynne sighed. "I have some means of purifying rainwater or snow, yes, but the spells are draining on mana, and lengthy to perform. If we have no alternative then I can do it."

"Understood. We have water enough for five days at need without that, if we use it for nothing but cooking or drinking, and carefully rationed at that. It has taken us almost two days to get to Ostagar from the last untainted lands, it will take us two days to get back. That gives us three days to deal with what we find there. If of course," she added, "what we find there does not send us running north as fast as our legs will take us, to warn Queen Anora and Arl Eamon that our armies are in completely the wrong place and an Archdemon led horde is coming up from the south, and heading for the road to Denerim."

Wolf, who would normally have scouted in circles around the group, had stuck close to Muirnara's legs for most of the day, alternating between unhappy growls and disgusted sneezes, as if trying to clear his nose of the all-pervading reek of rot, with little success. They had not stopped to eat at midday, none of them had had any appetite. Also they had calculated that if they took no breaks they would reach Ostagar by late afternoon and hopefully be able to find somewhere in the ruins to camp before darkness fell. If indeed there was ever any change of day and night in these lands, the hopeless grey half light had not altered all day.

The pass that led into the old fortress was surprisingly unchanged, other than the drifts of snow - sleet had become snow not long after lunch time, tapering off as they entered Ostagar itself. The snow appeared surprisingly white against the darkened land. The air seemed even colder than before, but the very cold seemed to reduce the sickening smell - Ostagar smelled of almost nothing.

Muirnara glanced once at Wynne, the mage had thrown back the hood of her cloak and was looking around her with a set expression, as though translating in her mind the pictured memories of how this place had once been, into the snow-laden painting that was now before them. Loghain had taken two paces ahead of them and then suddenly his sword was in his hand "Darkspawn!" The word was hissed through his teeth. Wynne and Leliana dropped back, one readying bow, the other staff, Wolf had shot forward and was worrying at the throat of the first hurlock, Loghain moving in on the second. She had closed the distance in a few seconds, her dagger in the back of Loghain's target. The remainder of the spawn, another hurlock and a genlock emissary were swiftly dispatched and they stood, breathing hard.

"Too few." Loghain was cleaning his sword on the snow drifted up against the wall. "Far too few. Where in the Maker's name are they all? I expected this place to be crawling."

Muirnara stood, letting her senses reach out for the expected tugging...which was not there. "I can feel no others anywhere remotely near - this isn't right."

"Perhaps they also did not expect anyone else to be here?" Leliana was carefully retrieving her unbroken arrows. "I cannot imagine that anyone has set foot here since the battle, they know our forces are withdrawn to the north."

"The problem is," Muirnara commented, "that while we as Grey Wardens can sense the Darkspawn, they can also sense us. Loghain and I should be standing out to them like hill beacons at midnight. Every spawn in less than a mile should already been converging on this spot. And they just...aren't. It's like there are none here at all, and I simply cannot believe that."

"In the mean time, we're losing the light. What light there is." Loghain was studying the surroundings intently as though seeking for darkspawn that somehow were evading the senses. "We need to get tents up and sort out a guard roster. Unless you had plans to try to look into the Tower of Ishal in the dark - and I would not recommend it."

"No, certainly not. Tomorrow morning will do for that." Muirnara also looked around. "Our best spot for a camp site will probably be up where the old Mabari pens were, the Ash Warriors got the least ruined part of the buildings. At least there we can pitch tents with a solid wall behind them - more secure and warmer. Though I can't imagine," she added, looking around herself with a shiver, "that this is going to be a warm night for anyone."

"Do we risk a fire?" Wynne asked, leaning heavily on her staff Now the immediately adrenaline rush of the battle was gone, Muirnara noticed that Wynne was looking drawn and tired, even her normal dagger glances at Loghain had been absent for a while now.

"I can't see that it is actually going to make anything worse. As I said, Loghain and I will draw them if they are anywhere near, the fire won't make it any more or less likely that they find us. A fire might even be some defence - not much admittedly, but better than being beset in the dark." She walked a few paces away from the darkspawn corpses to retrieve her pack, dropped on the floor when the attack had started. "We had better scout about and see what timber there still is here, though it's all going to be either soaking wet or frozen."

A hurried search of the immediate area produced some broken barrels and crates, and the smashed remains of the Mabari pens themselves, heavier timber which would burn for a good while if they ever managed to persuade the fire to light at all. They struggled for a while before a tired Wynne finally gave in and cast a spell that set the roughly constructed firepit ablaze. A pot was slung over the fire with a small amount of water in it, and while it boiled, Muirnara and Leliana set up the two small tents that they had brought. Wynne's exhaustion was now even more apparent and Muirnara had set her to watch the kettle with strict instructions to do so from a sitting position on top of one of the packs, and not to stand up again for anything short of a full blown darkspawn assault.

"There's something even stranger," Muirnara said quietly to Loghain once the tents were up. "What do you feel about the surrounding land here?"

He glanced at her. "I know what you mean, but I wondered if it was because the Taint in my blood was so new, that my perceptions were less sensitive. But you feel it too?"

"Yes. The land within Ostagar's surrounding walls is untainted. There is no taint on the fallen snow here, nor in the soil. As soon as you probe outside the walls, the land is befouled again. None of this makes any sense at all."

They accepted the mugs of hot tea that Leliana passed to them, cupping their hands around the mugs to thaw out numbed fingers. Loghain managed the ghost of a smile. "At least it eases one of our immediate problems, Warden. If the snow here is untainted, we can boil and filter it for drinking and washing, and we can save what is in the water bottles for the return journey."

"True." Muirnara glanced at Wynne. "If we are going to watch two and two tonight, then I suggest that Wynne is the one who gets a night's sleep. She looks completely exhausted. I should have noticed earlier, we could have slackened the pace a little."

Loghain glanced across the fire to where Wynne was hunched over her own steaming tea cup. "I agree. Does each pair need to be one Warden and one not?"

"It probably should be, but it may be an unnecessary precaution. You know that the few times that the spawn ever came close to the other camp, we both woke, it was impossible to sleep when that tugging came into the mind. And here, at least," she added, "we know that anything that attacks us will be tainted. I cannot believe there is anything for miles but Darkspawn and blight beasts."

"Better not to make assumptions, Warden - although it is rarely wrong to assume that men are generally more foolish and more greedy than they should be, and if some greedy fools have tracked us here in the hopes of loot either from us or from anything left behind in the fortress, then we will not be caught sleeping." He looked at her. "Do you plan to pair me with the Orlesian bard, or the dog?"

"Have you a preference?"

He raised his eyebrows. "It had probably better be the hound. Less of a chance that we end up in some argument and completely ignore the Darkspawn approach."

Muirnara seemed mildly amused by this. "In which case I had definitely better not pair you with Wynne for tomorrow night."

He snorted. "Probably a wise decision, Warden."

Muirnara stared away from their fire into the gathering darkness. "So what do we know? We know that Darkspawn do come into Ostagar because we have killed the four that were here when we arrived. We know that they do not come in here in any numbers, or the taint would be everywhere, and it is not. We know that at this moment, there are no Darkspawn within a mile of these ruins, or we would have felt them, they would have felt us, and they would have been on their way here already. What we do not know is why."

"We know one other thing, Warden." Loghain's voice was sombre. "We know that nothing keeps Darkspawn away from a place once they are set on entering. No magic, no wards, no barriers. The only thing that would keep them out of Ostagar is fear. " He looked at Muirnara, and if his glacial blue eyes could be said to hold any emotion at all, then that emotion might have been a dawning horror. "So we are left with yet another question. What is there that is so terrible, that even the Darkspawn fear it?"

"I have no answer." Muirnara looked away from him and out towards the darkness which now enshrouded all but the small circle of firelight.

"Nor have I."