Author's note - this chapter contains spoilers for Return to Ostagar DLC and a mild spoiler for The Stolen Throne. Most of the dialogue between Wynne and Loghain is again direct from game. Many thanks as always to my reviewers, who keep me inspired to write...but I'm afraid you won't discover quite yet what makes a Darkspawn afraid. Patience. It is coming :)

The night passed wretchedly slowly. Muirnara had volunteered to take the first watch, and from his furs within the tiny tent Loghain could see her pacing, pacing, like a caged cat, spinning round every time the wind sprang up as though utterly mistrustful now of her own senses. More than once Leliana spoke quietly to her, and she would laugh, and relax a little, but less than five minutes later she would be yet again stalking an invisible enemy. Wolf, who had chosen to lie by the fire outside the tents, although offered a fur within, appeared not to be sleeping either, his eyes were on his mistress and occasionally he would let out a soft whine, head cocked to one side as though attempting to understand her behaviour.

When Loghain finally climbed out of the tent, unable to stand watching her any longer, the Mabari sprang to his heels with an air of relief. He paused to add another half dried lump of timber to the fire, then moved across to Muirnara. "Warden, it makes no sense at all for me to lie awake in that tent. Go and sleep. Wolf and I will take the extra couple of hours onto our watch."

She rubbed the back of her gauntlet across her eyes. "I cannot shake this feeling that we are being watched. There is nobody else here, there are no Darkspawn close. Leliana is sensing nothing, which is just as well, if she was as jumpy as I am, she would probably have shot me in the back by now."

"Go and sleep," he repeated, giving her a gentle push in the direction of the tent he had come out of. "I piled both sets of furs and blankets together, they will still be warm if you don't waste time arguing with me."

She looked for a moment as if she was about to indeed argue, then with a sigh she nodded and turned away. Leliana had already climbed into the small tent that she was sharing with Wynne, and had curled up behind the old mage, throwing a protective arm around her. A thought crossed Muirnara's mind as she found her own way into Loghain's discarded bed furs - that perhaps Zevran had not been entirely wrong, and that there was more to the relationship between the mage and the bard than she had assumed. There was love in that protecting arm - maybe not how Zevran would have liked to imagine the two of them - but love none the less.

It wouldn't have been the first time that Zevran saw more clearly than the rest of us. Damn him.

When they had decided to take only two tents, Wynne's first words had been, "Just as long, child, as you do not expect me to share my sleeping furs with -him-." She had seen Loghain about to open his mouth to voice one of his sarcastic put-downs and Leliana had immediately jumped into the gap. "Wynne, cherie, you mean you even considered the possibility that someone other than myself should share your tent? I am wounded." Then she had dimpled at Loghain. "And I very much doubt that Loghain would have any appreciation for sleeping next to a woman such as myself, he would consider that the scent of Andraste's Grace was simply an attempt to cover up the natural perfume of Orlesian skin. So why should I even consider wasting such an experience on someone unable to appreciate it?" Wynne had laughed, even Loghain had raised an eyebrow and the hint of amusement had been seen fighting to get through his normal stony expression. At the time Muirnara had considered it a clever piece of two-way flirtation to break up yet another argument. Now, she wondered.

The furs were indeed still warm from Loghain's body and she stripped off boots and gloves and pulled them over herself. All of them were sleeping in some form of leather armour, Loghain's caustic comment about the Darkspawn being unlikely to give them time to dress had been taken to heart. It was not exactly comfortable as night attire, and still had to be changed in the morning to mail, or dragonscale, or in Wynne's case, the heavy Tevinter robes which they had taken from a slaver in Denerim's alienage, and which she still complained bitterly about every time she put them on. But it was better than the alternative, and saved changing when on night guard.

She could hear Loghain talking to Wolf, and Wolf whining piteously. She was half curious about the conversation, but now her frozen feet were finally thawing out and sleep was starting to overtake her. She drifted off into a confused dream, standing on the far side of an ice chasm, while a crowned and robed figure stood on the opposite side, beckoning to her. He was speaking but she could not make out what he was saying. She tried to call out to him, but as sometimes happens in a dream, her own voice made no sound. And then the scream of a dragon echoed across the chasm, and she saw it rise out of nowhere, dark wings blotting out the sun, and her own scream joined the dragon's, and she was fumbling for a sword that was not there, and then...

She gasped as something shook her shoulder, forcing her eyes open, and realised that grey daylight was everywhere, and Wolf was pawing at her. Loghain stood behind him. "You were screaming in your sleep, Muirnara. If he hadn't woken you, I would have done."

She sat up with a groan. "What time is it?"

"If I thought the sun was going to rise at all today, then I would have guessed that this was predawn. But since that grey light that we walked through all of yesterday was much like this, it could be an hour or two later. As far as I could tell, there has been nothing moving anywhere in the ruins all night. But I know what you meant about a feeling of being watched."

"I'm glad you don't think it was just my paranoia."

He shook his head. "Every instinct I have tells me that something is here, but the Maker only knows what."

An hour later they were all up, the fire was doused with snow and the tents struck. They left the firepit and the wood store intact in case no better prospect revealed itself for a camp that night. Leliana stood and looked over towards the Tower of Ishal. "Is that where we are going today?"

"Yes, but we are going to do it last. As I said yesterday I don't know what is going on here. So we are going to search the surface ruins first for any clue to the lack of Darkspawn. Also," she added, "on a purely practical note, anything we can salvage here that is light enough to carry back for sale, we are going to need. Coins, gemstones, magical items. We did not even loot those Darkspawn we found last night, and little as I may like it, our money reserves are low enough that we can't leave them."

She was surprised by the approving look on Loghain's face, unsurprised by the disgust on Wynne's. "Wynne, where was the Magi encampment and where were the stores left there?"

Wynne, after a night's sleep had seemed at breakfast to have recovered her acidic tongue in full measure, but she merely pointed. "That way, down towards the trees."

As Muirnara led the way towards the snow covered wreckage that Wynne had indicated, she was unsurprised to hear Wynne and Loghain arguing again. She did not catch Wynne's first barbed comment, spoken in a low voice, but Loghain's reply was distinct. "Let me know when you're done glaring at me, madam. My memories of this place are no fonder than your own."

Wynne seemed irritated by this. "No? I remember good friends dying in this place. And a man whom I respected as my king."

She heard Loghain's snort of disgust at that. "All I remember is a fool's death and a hard choice. I'd make the same again."

Wynne's own disgust was clear in her voice. "Even knowing all that you know now, Loghain Mac Tir?"

Loghain sounded weary. "Even so. Come, madam, our bitterness is better spent against the darkspawn than each other."

Wynne as always was unable to resist having the last word. "Yes, Maker forbid that I might waste a whole life's bitterness just on you." Then she marched forwards to join Muirnara. "Warden, the Tranquil had their camp at that side, if any of their magical supplies have not been looted that is where you would find them. Unless of course," her voice was cool, "you intend to search the frozen corpses of any of your former comrades in arms, who still lie here unburied."

Muirnara paused a moment and stared at Wynne. "All I can say, Wynne, is that, as you very well know, Grey Wardens do what they must. If you cannot stomach that, then I suggest you go and wait for us somewhere where you do not have to watch what we are doing. Do you seriously think that the Darkspawn will have left the bodies untouched? Would you prefer that anything they might still have carried is used by the spawn against us?"

Wynne shook her head. "I fear for you, child, and for what you are becoming. When I met you a year ago, you would not have spoken this way."

"Maybe not." Muirnara turned away. "A year ago, I knew far less than I do now. They were not lessons I would have chosen to have to learn. But I was not fool enough to ignore them." Then she deliberately ended the conversation, moving a few paces ahead with Wolf at her side.

A search of the Magi encampment produced one chest which had either been overlooked or was too heavy for the Darkspawn to carry away. Loghain smashed the lock and they salvaged the few small items it contained, mostly poor quality rings and amulets but light to carry. Nothing else was visible and they moved towards where Cailan's tent had stood. Here, they had better luck. A cursory search turned up a rusted key, and Loghain was able to indicate roughly where he believed Cailan's chest had been buried before the battle. The chest proved to contain money and some papers, and Muirnara took them out to read them. A quick scan made her eyebrows rise almost into her hairline. She looked up, saw Loghain watching her and passed them to him.

His first words on reading them were filled with white hot anger. "The cheating bastard!"

Wynne appeared shocked. "Watch your mouth, Loghain Mac Tir, unless you have forgotten the company you now keep!"

He seemed well beyond any dry, sarcastic retort, shocked into an fury that made him at once far more human and far more frightening. "It's not my company I worry about, madam, but my former son-in-law's! Do you see the familiar tone with which the empress writes him, as if my daughter were not already his wife?"

Wynne shook her head. "Cailan loved Anora with every ounce of his heart. It was plain for all to see. The only thing that ever stood between them was you."

He rounded on Wynne. "Are you blind, old woman? The plot is plain as day within this letter!" He thrust the letters into her hands "Love or no, Cailan was going to cast my daughter aside and wed himself to that bitch, Celene. In a single vow, Orlais would claim all that they could never win by war! And what would Ferelden gain? Our fool of a king could strut about and call himself an emperor."

Wynne was reading the letter as Loghain shouted at her. Finally she looked up, and her voice was less acidic, if not friendly. "And what of peace? Would it not bring us that, at least?"

Loghain shook his head. "Peace? I would have thought your age might have granted more wisdom, madam. Peace just means fighting someone else's enemies in someone else's war for someone else's reasons." He turned and looked out towards the tainted lands outside Ostagar's walls. He appeared to be calming himself but Muirnara saw his clenched fists.

He is as near to breaking as I have been, these last weeks. Maybe more so, because even alone in his tent I doubt he would ever permit himself the grace of tears. Anger is his only outlet, and even then he keeps a firm hand on it. I wonder how many years he has lived like this.

She reclaimed the letters from Wynne and folded them, placing them in her own belt pouch. Eleanor Cousland had trained her too well in politics to simply rip them up and throw them away, there might yet come a time when these would be a weapon as sharp as dragonbone in their own arena.

Glancing at Loghain's turned back, she beckoned to Leliana. "Leliana, can you and Wynne go and check the bodies of those four Darkspawn we killed yesterday? They are lying just a little way down the slope from us."

Leliana also glanced at Loghain, then she turned away and beckoned to Wynne and the two women moved away. Muirnara turned back to the chest. Something about the design of it seemed familiar, she had seen chests like this before. Her fingers probed delicately along the lid of the chest, found the catch she was expecting, pressed it, and the false bottom of the chest came open, to reveal a shape swathed in sacking. She lifted it out carefully and unwrapped it, to reveal a sword.

"Loghain," she said quietly. "I think you had better see this."

He turned round to look at the sword and his eyes widened. He reached a hand out as if to touch it and then drew back.

"You know this blade, don't you." She made the words a statement, not a question.

He nodded. "I saw it when Maric first took it up in the Deep Roads." He indicated the runes on the blade. "Those runes flared blue when he wielded it. But why is it here? I was sure that Cailan, with his dreams of glory, would have gone into battle with it in his hand."

She shook her head. "I don't know." She offered him the hilt. "But I think perhaps you were meant to have it."

He shook his head and started to say something, she stopped him. "Whatever happened at Ostagar, you loved King Maric all his life, you told me once you would have led an army into the Fade if he had asked it of you, you never ceased to mourn him. I think that he would have wanted to see it in your hand, now when the land you both loved so well is under a greater threat than it has ever been."

He seemed about to argue, then he reached for the hilt and took it, and as he raised it, they both saw the gold runes on the blade glitter to blue, and Muirnara for a second thought she saw an answering glitter in Loghain's ice blue eyes that could have been trapped tears - then he withdrew the longsword he was carrying from its scabbard and sheathed the new blade, and the moment passed.

"Warden!" It was Wynne's voice, calling from further down the slope, with some distress in her voice. "I think you really need to come and look at this."