Creatures seem to scream and faint
Shadows blink and the laws will break
Questions we could never solve
As answers in darkness evolved
—Ash Tree Lane
, MS MR

The darkspawn slid off the end of Alistair's sword with a weird sucking sound, leaving behind an eerie silence. He looked up in surprise, breathing heavily and feeling the ache in his muscles from what felt only moments ago like a battle against a never-ending number of darkspawn.

Jory stood next to him, leaning heavily on the two-handed sword he had propped in the ground. Alistair looked around and saw an impressively large circle of darkspawn corpses around them.

"That's the last of them," Jory said, sounding just as tired as Alistair felt. "I thought they'd never end."

Alistair didn't even have the breath to respond. He turned to look where the others had been and didn't see them.

His heart, which had only just started to beat slower, sped up with sudden fear. "Where are the others?"

Jory turned to look and then looked at Alistair with a dumbfounded expression.

Before Alistair could lose himself to panic he heard the unmistakable bark of Elissa's mabari coming at them from a distance. He looked up in surprise, not noticing until now that the hound had even left his side. He saw Prince by the copse of trees where he'd stationed Elissa and Daveth at the start of the battle. The dog was obviously excited, dancing around and barking maniacally at them.

He shared a worried look with Jory before urging his tired muscles into action once again and taking off as fast as he could toward the mabari, worry forming an uncomfortable knot of acid in his stomach.

"Elissa? Daveth?" he shouted as he ran over, but heard no response.

He got to the trees and saw what Prince was going on about. Daveth was lying on the ground on his back, his bow still clutched in one hand. He looked bruised and bloodied but Alistair saw the man's chest rise and fall and realized quickly that he was still alive.

Prince was sniffing all around the area, clearly getting the scent of something, before giving a triumphant bark and dashing off into the words.

"Wait!" Alistair cried, taking a few steps to follow the dog and then turning and looking back at Daveth. "Dammit."

He walked back and knelt at Daveth's side, hoping he still had some of the potions Elissa had passed out to all of them, and trying not to succumb to the dread he felt encroaching on his sanity. Where the hell was Elissa?

"Maker's breath, what happened here?"

Alistair looked up to see Jory looming over him. The knight's eyes were wide with shock, and he simply stood there, staring.

Before Alistair could answer, Daveth stirred and gave a moan of pain. He mumbled something incomprehensible before finally opening his eyes and looking at them. "Sodding hell," he said, trying to sit up.

Alistair passed him a health potion. "Where's Elissa?"

Daveth choked down the potion and looked around. "I . . . I don't know." He shook his head, looking confused. "This big blighter of a darkspawn came up behind us and cuffed her on the head, and then got me . . ." He looked up at Alistair in concern. "She's not with you?"

He didn't answer, and instead got up and starting looking around the bottom of the hill. After a moment he noticed where some of the marsh grass appeared flattened as if something had been dragged across it.

It felt like there was a hunk of cold lead sitting in Alistair's stomach with the dawning realization of what must have happened.

"Oh Maker," he swore, feeling the panic that he'd only just managed to keep at bay staring to flare up even worse. "The darkspawn took her."

"The darkspawn took her body?" Jory said, sounding both incredulous and terrified.

But the question made Alistair think. "No," he said, shaking his head. "I mean, she might not be dead." The two recruits looked at him doubtfully but he didn't really want to explain. "Look, we just have to find her—"

Just then Prince burst through the line of trees behind them to come barreling up to Alistair and deliver what sounded like a scathing reprimand in bark form. He stared at the beast, dumbfounded for a moment, before the hound gave another final bark, and then turned around to face the way he came.

The dog looked over his shoulder at Alistair and huffed. He felt a little crazy thinking it, but he was quite sure that huff meant "are you coming or what?"

"Right!" Of course Prince could track her. Alistair started after the dog. "Stay here with Daveth!" he called over his shoulder as he ran after the hound, hope flickering dangerously in his chest.

Watch over your charges, Alistair. Return quickly and safely.

Duncan's words rang in his ears as he tried to keep up with the mabari charging through the Wilds, mocking his ineptitude and failure. He had thought splitting the archers away from the melee fighters to shoot from cover had been a good plan, but it obviously failed, nearly getting Daveth killed and getting Elissa kidnapped (or worse) as a result.

One thing was certain: after this, he was never leading anyone anywhere ever again.


It didn't take a genius to figure out that wherever the horn-helmed darkspawn was taking her and whatever it intended, it couldn't be good. Elissa's mind started to conjure up images of the mutilated bodies they'd seen the darkspawn leave in their wake before she stopped herself, trying to squash down the terror that was beginning to gnaw at her insides.

She needed to concentrate on relevant facts and details only—no matter how disturbing.

The first and most pressing detail was that a darkspawn was dragging her by her ankle across the swampy Korcari Wilds.

A light rain had started to fall and the grass she was getting dragged over was wet. The darkspawn who held her made no effort to stick to any sort of path, and Elissa could feel the water seeping in between the cracks in her leather armor. Fortunately the act of being dragged had caused her satchel to get lifted up by her head, providing a sort of lumpy pillow and protecting her skull from being bounced and banged on every rock and stick she was dragged across. This was doubly good considering the sharp throbbing pain she felt at her right temple—a pain accompanied by a sticky wetness that could only be blood.

How serious her head injury was, she didn't quite know. She only knew that when she probed it with a feather light touch the pain intensified enough to make her stomach heave and the entire world go hazy.

So, it was a pretty bad injury, and she knew she needed to attend to it quickly if she was going to survive this encounter.

Why bother?

She didn't have the strength to crease her brow into a frown at the unwelcome voice, but if she had she would have scowled deeply at the traitorous sentiment.

All dead. Must be.

She knew the voice probably spoke a simple truth but she also knew it would only paralyze her with fear if she let the message seep in. Still, it was hard not to think about the other recruits and Alistair, and—Maker, where the hell was Prince? She couldn't believe her mabari was still alive . . . not if she'd been captured. He'd have done something, surely—

A painfully sharp rock scraped against her backside and she tensed involuntarily from the surprise before willing herself to go limp again. The darkspawn didn't react, so she let out a quiet breath in relief. It was better that the thing think she was still unconscious.

The shock was enough to stop her from worrying about the others and return her focus to her plan.

Her plan—that was a bit too ambitious a name for whatever it was she intended to do next. She only had a vague idea at the moment. She needed to think and she needed to do it soon—her chances of escaping her captor were best right now, before the thing had a chance to meet up with more of its kind.

So, first things first, she needed to drink a health potion. The pain in her head was too distracting, and she would need to be at her best.

She lowered her right arm until her hand was even with her face and she could slip it into the opening of her satchel where she fervently hoped she could find at least one more potion.

She closed her eyes as she tried to feel out the shapes within. She felt a scratchy sprig of elfroot that crumbled under her fingers, and then her hand found a cool glass vial and her heart surged with hope. She grasped it and slowly brought it out of her bag, opening her eyes to see if the darkspawn noticed her movements, not taking her eyes off it until her hand was in front of her face.

She looked at her prize and then felt her stomach sink. It wasn't a health potion. It was her fire bomb—something that could perhaps be useful in the future, but it wasn't immediately helpful now. She couldn't exactly throw it at the spawn and risk it bouncing back on to her. She'd be just as likely to set herself on fire.

Still, it could come in handy, so she slipped it into the right front pocket of her pants before plunging her hand back into her bag for another search. This time it only took a few seconds of grasping before she found another vial.

The darkspawn seemed completely oblivious to her movements, probably thinking she was too weak to wake up from the blow it'd given her. She risked moving a little more quickly, bringing the vial to her face and feeling a surge of relief at the sight of the red liquid within it.

She could probably conserve some of it by applying it topically, but the thought of the pain that would force her to endure ruled out that idea in favor of drinking it. The medium-sized vial might contain more healing than she really needed, but she planned to quaff the whole thing, nevertheless.

It was her head she was healing, after all.

The problem was she didn't think she'd be able to drink it without spilling it from her position on her back, and she really didn't want to waste a single drop of it.

So, new priority: she had to get free.

She moved the potion to her other hand and slipped it into her left front pocket. She needed to remember: health potion on the left, fire bomb on the right. Getting those mixed up would have dire consequences . . . the absurdity of that almost made her laugh, and the impulse frightened her because there was absolutely nothing humorous about her current predicament. She wondered if the inappropriate emotion were a result of her head injury, and that thought was scary enough to rid her of any lingering amusement.

Escape . . . that was her next step. She reached down to her left hip where her family sword hung from her belt only to find her hand met an empty sheath. She did frown then, and when her gaze traveled to the darkspawn who held her foot she just about snarled in rage when saw the Cousland family blade strapped to the creature's back.

Escape wasn't enough. She had to kill this bastard thing to get her sword back.

She took a deep breath and willed herself to think. She didn't know how much time she had, but she couldn't assume it was very much.

The darkspawn held her only by one ankle, and kind of loosely at that. She could probably unbend her other leg and deliver a swift kick to its hand to free herself before the thing noticed she was awake.

Probably.

But then what? She was weaponless, having dropped her crossbow back at the hill. She took mental stock of her supplies. She had some crossbow bolts in her quiver, and some poison left in her satchel. She could try stabbing it with a bolt, but she didn't feel very hopeful that she'd be able to deliver a killing blow through its armor before it was able to strike her down.

Though maybe it wanted her alive? It had hit her with its fist, she remembered, when it could have just as easily killed her with the large mace it wielded.

Still, she needed her sword back, and she doubted it would hesitate to kill her if she was nuisance enough. She couldn't count on it wanting her alive once she broke free.

She slipped her hand back into her satchel, hoping to find some key to her escape that had until now eluded her. She felt a few of her round tins containing balms that guarded against fire and ice—completely useless to her now.

Then her hand closed around a few small, square pieces of metal. She ran her thumb along the surface of one and felt the image stamped into it.

Glamour charms . . .

Her eyes widened with an idea. She pulled one of the charms out of her bag and held it in her hand, hesitating as she watched the darkspawn dragging her. She wasn't sure how strong the enchantment was—she would rather not alert the monster's attention to her wakefulness before the lure had a chance to work.

Maybe if she threw it, it'd get his attention and he'd drop her in pursuit of the shiny object. That would be ideal . . .

She took a deep breath, concentrated on a spot just above the darkspawn's left shoulder, and then threw the charm with a sharp flick of her wrist.

It sailed neatly over the 'spawn's shoulder, just exactly as she had hoped it would, but the monster didn't notice. It probably couldn't see it out of the eye slits of its helm, she realized, too late.

She let her head fall back down and stifled a frustrated sigh. She was going to have to take more drastic measures. She was betting her life on a stupid parlor trick, but she was out of options.

She reached into her bag and grabbed a couple of the charms before taking a deep breath and in as quick and smooth a motion as she could manage, brought her left leg up and delivered a swift, harsh kick to the hand that held her right ankle.

The darkspawn dropped her ankle immediately and Elissa wasted no time in scrambling backwards and then leaping to her feet. The world lurched horribly for a moment and she feared that she would black out, but she managed to steady herself. Through blinking eyes she watched the darkspawn whirl around and start toward her, lifting its mace overhead.

She held up a shaky hand, holding the gold charm between her thumb and forefinger, trying to get it to reflect as much light as possible to catch the monster's attention, feeling a little like a character holding up a symbol of Andraste in one of Oriana's Antivan vampire tales.

The monster froze and seemed to stare fixedly at the lure in her hand.

Her heart was pounding almost painfully in her chest as the darkspawn took another step toward her, growling with its enchanted desire for the charm. She held it up a few more seconds before deliberately throwing it to the right of the creature.

The monster whirled again and stumbled to its knees, pawing at the ground where the charm had landed. Elissa shoved the rest of the lures back in her bag and then jammed her hand down her left front pocket to retrieve the health vial.

She tried to calm herself and took a steadying breath before uncorking the vial and bringing it cautiously to her lips. She drank the whole thing, careful not to spill a drop, and even before she was finished drinking she felt the healing alchemy seep into her body. She closed her eyes. She could feel the skin begin to knit back together on the side of her head, a sensation that was at once both painful and pleasurable, before fading into an infuriating itch.

She opened her eyes, her mind suddenly feeling a thousand times clearer. The darkspawn was still pawing at the ground before it, looking for the charm.

The attraction spell on the charm would likely fade soon. Elissa had to act swiftly. She stepped lightly over to the darkspawn, feeling like a leaping dancer as she managed to grasp the sword and pull it off its back.

She didn't have any time to celebrate. The monster snapped out of the spell it was under and turned to face Elissa with a fearsome growl. The thing lunged and swung its mace in a wide over hand arc.

It must have been the suddenness of the attack that allowed her to react without thinking, because for once she didn't freeze at an imminent threat. Instead, she dodged in a move far more graceful and lithe than she would have thought herself capable.

The darkspawn stumbled at the end of his swing, his mace unexpectedly meeting nothing but air. She had time to dance a few steps backward before he came at her again. She was even more graceful with the next dodge, correctly reading his stance and the set of his body to predict where the mace would land and when.

It was a little exhilarating. She'd had no formal training, but she'd grown up with an older brother who was always bigger and stronger than her. And you can't grow up being the annoying know-it-all that she had been without learning how to dodge an attack or two from an exasperated older sibling.

She would never have predicted that such sibling antics would come in handy now, but they sure seemed to. The darkspawn came at her again several times, and each time his mace met only air, or the ground, or in once case a tree, as Elissa managed to dance around its attacks each time, never being where the thing expected her to be.

Eventually she would need to go on the offensive, she realized, because she doubted she could count on the thing tiring anytime soon. That was a tougher proposition. Her dancing dodges came naturally to her, but she always managed to move herself further away from the creature, not close enough to actually attack it.

The thing was well armored, and the helm it wore covered its entire head, only leaving two small slits for the eyes. There was a small gap between the helm and the thing's chest armor where Elissa thought she might be able to deliver a killing blow if she were lucky.

She tried envisioning the steps she'd have to take, how she could move both away from the mace and in tight enough to get her blade under its chin. The monster sometimes raised its mace high overhead to swing at her in an overhand arc—that would provide her best opening. The move would require exact timing and speed. She'd be relying somewhat on the element of surprise. She just needed to get in the right position—

—she dodged a blow by rolling to her right, but instead of scrambling backwards and away she crouched, gripping her sword in her hand. The darkspawn recovered from the missed swing and saw the opportunity to end the battle. Like she hoped it would, the thing planted its feet and raised its mace high overhead in preparation for delivering the killing blow.

It was like time slowed down. She waited until just before the swing was at its apex to spring.

It was a leap that felt every bit like the proverbial leap of faith. She barreled into the thing's chest with such force that it actually stumbled and fell. She landed on top of it with a painful jolt, stunning the breath out of her and paralyzing her for a few precious seconds while she saw stars in her eyes.

It must have knocked the wind out of the darkspawn too, because it also needed a few seconds before it delivered an angry growl that startled Elissa out of her daze. She tightened her grip on her sword and brought up her right arm to deliver a killing blow to its neck when the thing suddenly shoved itself off the ground, tossing her aside like a rag doll.

The jolt of landing on the ground knocked her sword out of her hand and she again felt the breath knocked out of her lungs. She gasped for air as she lay on her back. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the darkspawn loom over her, and the shadow of its mace flitted across her face as it was raised once again overhead.

Some primal survival instinct flared alive in her, and not since she'd been cornered in her bedroom by an armed intruder had Elissa felt such an all-consuming imperative to survive, no matter what it took to do so.

She didn't think—she was guided purely by blind panic. She dug her right hand into the marshy Korcari soil and grabbed a wet clump of mud that she flung with all the force she could muster directly at the face of the hurlock.

It landed with a satisfying smack, clogging the small slits the horned helm had for eyeholes. The darkspawn staggered back, stunned by the sudden blindness.

She launched herself to her left, toward where she thought her sword had fallen, and scrambled around in the long grass looking for it for a few seconds before kicking it with her foot. She snatched it up with a grateful gasp, only to turn around and just narrowly avoid the wild swing the darkspawn made with its mace in her general direction.

She rolled back to her right again and prepared to dodge but saw instantly that the darkspawn was confused. She could tell by the way it cocked its head to the side that it really couldn't see much at all out of its helm, and she was struck with a sudden and exultant triumph. She was going to beat this thing, she realized for the first time with a gleeful sneer. They were fighting a battle to the death and she was going to sodding win it.

She glanced around quickly for something to throw and found a fist-sized rock. She crouched, careful not to make any sound, before tossing the rock past the darkspawn to its left.

Just as she planned, the monster started toward the sound, swinging its mace wildly as it did. She knew she only had a few seconds to act, so even before the thing had completed its first careening step in the direction of the sound she started moving, one goal intent on her fevered mind.

She was going to stab this foul creature in its blighted back.

She remembered her conversation with Alistair and felt utterly foolish for ever having doubted the practicality of it. Honor had no place in her survival, especially not where these mindless, disgusting creatures were concerned.

It was only a few light steps and she was upon it, thrusting her sword with all her might into the gap underneath the armor on its back. She was shocked at how easily the blade sliced through the flesh and muscle, and she'd plunged the thing in almost to the hilt when she realized she'd fully impaled the creature.

Her success was short lived, however, as instead of falling to the ground with a thud like she'd envisioned, the creature gave out a gruesome howl and whirled around, wrenching the sword out of Elissa's grasp before she could pull it back out.

She was almost too shocked to scramble away as he lunged at her in a few steps that belied what she had to believe was a fatal wound. She slipped and fell in the mud with a thwack, having to scrabble on her hands and feet backward in a crabwalk to get away from the beast that was still lurching at her.

Finally, the thing stopped and fell to its knees before collapsing face down into the muddy grass and lying completely still.

Elissa panted painfully from all the exertion of the last few minutes. As she stared at the black blood that began to seep in the mud around the darkspawn, she noticed how it seemed to taint and rot the very earth itself, turning the grass all around the creature a sudden dull shade of brown.

As her breathing slowed Elissa started to feel chilled. At first, it was just the fading heat of battle nerves—the come down from a battle to the death. But as she stared at the blood seeping into the ground a simple realization came to her that chilled her more than the cold Korcari wind ever could.

A manic part of her brain wanted to laugh at the absurdity. It was all so bloody obvious. As someone who'd studied poisons only to learn their antidotes, she should have seen it right away. It was shameful that she hadn't.

She knew now, exactly why they were collecting the darkspawn blood, and how the Grey Wardens got their powers.

Maker's breath, they were going to drink it.


Author's Note: I've told all you readers that I love you right? Well, it won't hurt you to hear it again! Thanks again to everyone who has followed, favorited and reviewed.

I am hopeful that future updates will come a little more quickly. I've had two bouts of illness and a bunch of stress since the last chapter, so this one took me far longer to get out than I'd anticipated.

I also had a fair amount of writer's block, which was no fun. This project is the most ambitious one I've ever attempted. I've never written a ton of action scenes before, and now it feels like I'm writing them all the time! It's a challenge, since most of my other fics have consisted of two people having a conversation, and not much more. It's been a learning process though, and I hope it's entertaining.

Thanks again! I swear we will get out of the Korcari Wilds next chapter (spoiler alert, it'll be called Drink so I think you can deduce what happens next).

Until next time!