First off, I would like to apologize for not updating in FOREVER, but I had a lot going on coupled with writers block.

4,151 hits, 38 reviews, 21 alerts, and 12 favorites.

That was the stats of this story at the time of writing this Author's Note. Now I'm quite curtain that that is low by overall fanfics standards, but I'm willing to bet that for the Fenrill population (which currently only consists of 7 with the romance genre) that that makes Vallaslin and Lyrium the third most popular fanfic of the seven Fenrill (yes I'm aware that two of them are one-shots and another is just a poorly written piece of plagiarism taken from my own story); the most popular being either my first Fenrill 'The kitten and the wolf' or katyakora's 'Anyone but you' (Which I highly recommend reading if you haven't already and you want a well written fanfic that has already reached the point where the two elves get together and beyond). So I would like to thank in no particular order: my beta-reader Hatsepsut for helping me find those mistakes despite her lack of interest in Merrill as a character, Lady red darkness for helping me by giving some incredible advice back when this story had only one chapter, and all my regular readers and reviewers who give me confidence in my writing ability that everyone but me seems to think I have.

Chapter 9

Fenris removed one of his gauntlets and used the newly freed hand to try and wipe away some of the grime, dust, and sweat that caked his forehead. It was starting to get noticeably more humid this deep in the caverns. The male elf also started to feel a little lightheaded as his vision began to swim for a few minutes.

"Fenris are you alright?" asked a concerned Merrill, causing Fenris to regain his focus enough to lie, "I'm fine,"

"Are you sure? Cause you look a little pale," Merrill observed as she squinted her eyes at the lyrium engraved elf as though she were studying him.

"I think I would know if my own body was feeling terrible," Fenris stubbornly insisted as he stood a bit straighter to try and fool the young Dalish.

Merrill simply turned her head to face ahead, but not before eyeing Fenris' injured shoulder again, the bite mark looking particularly gruesome.

The two walked for ten minutes before they heard the lullaby again, this time much louder than before.

"We must be getting close," Merrill stated mostly to herself as they reached a bend in the tunnel. The Dalish was about to turn the corner when Fenris grabbed her shoulder to stop her in her tracks.

"What?" asked Merrill as she turned her head to look at Fenris, noticing the wounded shoulder more closely and seeing a small decaying tooth actually imbedded in his shoulder.

Fenris didn't say anything as he walked past Merrill and leaned himself against the tunnel wall to peek around the bend. He then motioned for Merrill to join him at the wall beside him. Curiosity getting the better of her; Merrill leaned around Fenris to see what he was looking at.

The bend turned to a wide open chamber that was dimly lit by torch light. In the middle of the chamber was an alter of some sort surrounded by burning candles. At the center was a stone slab with a small bundle of rags resting on it, and behind the stone slab as a woman in her mid-thirties singing the lullaby.

The woman had untidy blonde hair that ran down to her shoulders in a tangled messy, she was covered in so much grime and dust that she made Fenris and Merrill appear clean, and she wore tattered and worn robes.

The woman was wielding a dagger as she sung the lullaby to the rags, making Merrill not want to know what was in bundle. Once the woman had finished her lullaby she raised the dagger to her wrist and slit it open, blood dripping on the rags as she chanted some words that were unknown to her.

After ten seconds of dripping her blood she pulled her arm away from the rags and to Merrill's horror a crying scream came from the bundle.

The Woman's face had turned to that of extreme joy and relief as the bundle cried; lines of tears were streaking through the grime of the woman's face as she delicately picked up the bundle and shushed soothing words to whatever was in the rags peacefully as she rocked it back and forth in her arms.

"Is that…" Merrill trailed off, unable to finish her question as a lump had formed in her throat at the thought going through her head.

"This atrocity must end," Fenris muttered more to himself then to Merrill as he unsheathed his sword.

The woman tore her eyes from the bundle at the sound of the sword leaving its scabbard; her eyes shifted to blinded horror and crazed protectiveness as she clutched the crying bundle closer to her chest and shrieked incoherently, "No, No… you can't take, you can't take, too much blood for this moment for take!"

Merrill heard the sound of inhuman shrieking coming from above them as she joined herself alongside Fenris with her staff drawn; looking up she could see more of the undead creatures crawling along the walls towards them.

"MY CHILDREN, PROTECT ME!" the woman screeched as she removed a wooden staff from her back with her free hand and summoned a protective barrier around herself.

At that moment four undead creatures landed effortlessly around the two elves, poised and ready to attack.

Fenris quickly dashed forward while performing a vicious horizontal arc with his blade; managing to split one of the corpses in two and sever the arm of another. Merrill quickly summoned thick tree roots from the earth and used them to grab and toss the two that had advanced upon her; the impact on the ground had been so strong the rotting husks were shattered and torn to pieces.

Once Fenris had decapitated the one-armed corpse six more entered the fray. Two of the corpses got instantly zapped by chain lightning from Merrill as Fenris charged forward and sliced up the staggered opponents; immediately after that one of the undead, wielding a rusted dagger, pounced on Fenris with the intent of stabbing him with the weapon only for the creature to explode into pieces of leathery skin, decaying organs, and shattered bone and rain upon Fenris.

The tattooed elf glanced back at Merrill for an instant to see her with her staff raised in the direction of the now destroyed corpse. A foreign emotion started passed through the ex-slave for a faction of a second, before he put he focused his full attention back to the battle and cut another enemy in half.

Once Merrill had finished the last two creatures with a fireball Fenris charged at the crazed woman who was startled from the advancing elf and dropped her protective barrier and leaving herself open for attack.

Fenris quickly took a swing at the woman who blocked it with her staff, causing it to fly out of her grasp from the force of the blow as the woman few backwards, still clutching the now screaming bundle of rags in her arms with all her strength.

The tattooed elf then raised his sword above his head as he intended to finish the woman once and for all; then swung downward only to stop right before the blade collided with the woman's head.

Merrill watched in confusion as she watch Fenris stop his attack; then horror etched her face as Fenris stiffly turned around and stared soullessly at her with glowing red eyes, she looked past him to see the woman who was standing back up with a dagger in her side as her own eyes glowing the same crimson red as Fenris'.

"Kill the female," the two spoke in unison and Merrill realized what the blood mage had done, she had performed a blood thrall spell on Fenris.

Fenris then began an advance on her, weapon in hand, while Merrill pleaded to the male elf to stop to no effect.

Fenris swung his blade in a horizontal arc towards Merrill who quickly blocked it with her staff. Then he repeated the assault with multiple violent swings, all of which Merrill barely managed to block with her staff.

Then finally, after the twelfth swing Fenris managed to knock Merrill's staff out of her hands, quickly following up with a reverse slash at Merrill's midsection and causing a thin shallow gash to form across her stomach.

The Dalish elf fell on her side in pain as she clutched her stomach in agony, her eyes pleading up to Fenris who didn't seem to care.

This is it, Merrill thought as she closed her eyes, slain because Fenris couldn't resist a blood thrall, he probably even allowed it so he could kill me for being a blood mage.

It was then that Merrill got an idea, and quickly opened her eyes and stared intently at Fenris' own eyes as he swung downward at her only to stop at the last minute.

"I said attack!" the woman shrieked as Fenris stood perfectly still, shivering only slightly as though he was trying to fulfill the order but was stuck.

"Drop your sword," Merrill and Fenris said in unison, and after what appeared to be a great effort on his part, Fenris complied and laid his sword down next to his feet.

"I release you," the two elves spoke as Fenris collapsed to the floor in a panting heap.

"Wh…what happened?" Fenris stuttered as he tried to regain his senses.

The woman then shrieked again as she removed the dagger from her side and stabbed it in her shoulder and caused a red haze to manifest around the two elves; and within a second the two felt like their insides where on fire. Merrill then noticed that whatever blood was coming out of her wounds was boiling.

The Dalish quickly started crawling towards her staff in hopes of casting the spell off; but each and every motion took an extreme effort to perform as her blood literally boiled inside her.

Her vision began to go dark as she got closer to the staff, fear filling up her up at the possibility that she might fail. Then, she felt her hand bump into something and the moment her fingers grasped around her staff she quickly summoned the reserved strength she didn't know she had and pulled herself into a sitting position and cast a stone's fist directly at the woman. The magically summoned boulder flew through the air and collided with the crazed blood mage's face with a sickening crunch, her limp body falling to the ground.

All at once, the elves blood stopped boiling, the relief causing the two to collapses in exhaustion from their ordeal.

Merrill panted heavily as she just stared up at the rocky ceiling, the feeling of being impossibly content from surviving probably one of the tensest battles she'd ever encountered overflowing her very being.

She was soon pulled out of her dazed state by the sound of screaming; so she lifted her head to find the bundle next to the dead mage's body, the horrible sound resonating from the pile of rags. With some difficulty, Merrill managed to pull herself up and started to limp the twenty feet to the bundle. Once she reached it, Merrill reached down and moved a piece of the cloth aside and fell backwards in shock at what she found. she burst into tears only a half-second later.

The dalish was too traumatized to hear the shuffle of Fenris' feet. So she was pretty surprised when she felt a hand grab her shoulder and give her a single shake to snap her out of it; then, as quickly as it happened Fenris' hand left her shoulder. Merrill turned her head in Fenris' direction to look into his own face. Sweat from the battle had roughly cleaned his face of the dust and grime to reveal skin that was oddly pale in comparison to Fenris' usual tan from originating in Tevinter; Merrill noticed that he was clutching his injured shoulder with his hand.

"We must be rid of it," his voice was deathly calm and to the point, Merrill only nodded in agreement as Fenris raised his sword, the tip of the blade hovering over the bundle of filthy rags; then, in the time period of an intake of air, he brought the sword down.

At that instance, new tears ran down Merrill's face.

V

After spending hours trying to find the Dragon's Head Tavern; Hawke's group finally found the place just as the sun had set behind the rooftops, The building was an unassuming place that just sort of blended in with the rest of the buildings in the street, only a simple sign with the drawing of a bloodied dragon head served as any indication of the building being the tavern.

"This looks like the place," said Varric as they entered the tavern. The moment the doors opened the group was nearly overwhelmed by the noise and vibrant energy within the main room as almost all the patrons formed a large crowd in the middle dining area, the group cheering names and placing bets.

"What is going on here?" Anders asked in confusion.

"I don't know, but I'm willing to bet a whole sovereign that Roger has something to do with this," Varric offered.

"I'll have a piece of that action," stated Isabela before the crowd suddenly parted as a scrawny, redheaded and filthy human fell through the path that the crowd had made and landed square on his face and skidded about a half foot on said face before coming to a complete stop at Hawke's feet.

"Pay up Ravaini," Varric exclaimed as the redhead started to push himself off of the ground to look up and notice the group. His one eye that wasn't black and swollen widening once they fell upon Varric and he quickly greeted, "Tethras! It's been too long!"

"You and I have a very different opinion of too long my friend," Varric stated sarcastically as he offered a hand to help pull the guy up onto his feet.

"Where is this 'Herder' located?" Hawke quickly asked, wanting to get to the point.

"Whoa, whoa, don't you guys want to rest up or something? You've been travelling for over almost a month, I think you guys should get a hot meal and…"

Roger didn't get a chance to finish for Hawke grabbed him by the collar and pulled the contact's face to within inches of his own drawing a few questioning stares from the patrons as he hissed threateningly, "You will take us to this Slaver immediately or I will gut you like a genlock right here and now!"

"Y-you wouldn't kill me in front of all these witnesses… Would you?' Roger asked in a frightened tone as Hawke held him in his steely gaze until Anders put a hand on Hawke's shoulder to get his attention.

"What!" Hawke all but spat at Anders who removed his hand from the champion's shoulder like he had been burned by a flame.

"Hawke, calm yourself," Anders stated evenly as he met Hawke's violent gaze with one of his own.

"Merrill has been kidnapped and you what me to CALM DOWN!" Hawke roared at the healer before he yanked Roger into Anders, knocking the both on the floor, causing Sebastian to inch his hand closer to his bow while Varric and Isabela stared speechlessly for the first time in their lives.

"You don't care about her do you?" Hawke stated madly as he unsheathed his blade and held it level at his three still standing companions, who quickly unsheathed their respective weapons, along with half the tavern, while Varric pleaded, "Of course we care about Daisy, Hawke, we also care about Fenris too, it's just that we could use some rest.

"YOU…" Hawke's eyes suddenly rolled up into the back of his head as he collapsed, his sword falling from his grasp with a resounding clang.

The three rogues stared at the unconscious champion in confusion until Anders slowly pulled himself off of the ground with his staff in his right hand.

It was Varric who regained enough of his composure to speak first, "Good timing Blondie,"

"What do we do now?" asked Anders as he helped Roger get back to his own feet, his face ghostly pale and his good eye wide from the incident that had just transpired.

"I say we get some food to eat then go looking for Herder," Sebastian suggested as he walked over and tried to pick up Hawke's unconscious body and motioning for Anders to help him as he added, "but first, we're renting a room,"

V

Merrill had never been so happy to see the night sky in her life.

All she wanted to do now was leave this Creators forsaken hole in the ground that was full of nothing but nightmare after nightmare and get back to the town for their payment and some rest. She took a long deep intake of cool autumn night air, reveling in the sensation of the cold air chilling her lungs as her body heat warmed the air inside. She then exhaled to see her breath float and vanish in front of her eyes.

She quickly glanced back to make sure Fenris was still behind her. The male elf was standing near the entrance to the caverns still holding his shoulder; at that Merrill's expression grew grim. That shoulder really looked terrible, and she worried about it being infected.

"Are you sure your shoulder is fine, Fenris?" Merrill had inquired, only to get a growl from the ex-slave as he resolutely walked past her and towards the town that was five miles from their current location.

Merrill released a sigh filled with equal parts frustration and exhaustion as she fell in step with her companion.

Fenris had never felt more exhausted in his life.

His shoulder throbbed with the slightest movement and his arm was completely numb to boot. He was covered in perspiration as the nighttime autumn air chilled the clinging sweat to near unbearable levels, it caused him to have to fight the constant need to shiver. But he didn't give in to the pain, his whole life was nothing but pain and this was no different in his opinion.

Fenris stared at Merrill who had managed to get ahead of him again as they walked through the forest, her form illuminated by the moonlight. He was, for the first time since meeting the naïve Dalish, impressed with her abilities; even if they were magic abilities, she had managed to break him out of the blood thrall spell and fight the paralyzing effects of the hemorrhage spell to kill that insane woman.

Fenris suddenly shook his head to get rid of his thoughts, the act causing a splitting headache to form. His vision suddenly went swimming like before and the last thing he remembered was is his face colliding with the dirt.

Merrill quickly turned around upon hearing a thud from behind her; only to find Fenris' body laying face down on the ground.

"Fenris!" Merrill screamed as she ran over and knelt before the now unconscious elf. The Dalish quickly turned him over onto his back and shook him trying to get him to wake up.

No response.

Merrill tried to remember what Anders did when someone was passed out and quickly put her fingers to Fenris' neck to try and find a pulse; relief spread across her face as she managed to find it, it was faint, but it was there. Merrill then started to think of what to do, they were all alone in the forest with no one around to help, and the town was about five miles away so trying to carry him was out of the question, if she could even pick him up that is. They had no health poultices and she wasn't a healer, she didn't even know the basics of spirit healing.

Merrill figured that the first thing she should do was try and clean his wound. So she started to unravel her scarf that was still around Fenris' neck from using it earlier to hide his Lyrium markings while in town. She then reached into her travelling bag to pull out the water canteen she had purchased that morning; she had taken the precaution to fill it up with water before heading out to find the killer.

She uncorked the canteen cap and poured some of its contents on the scarf to dampen it. Merrill then wringed it out and began cleaning the wound with the cloth.

The moment Merrill touched the decaying tooth that was still imbedded in his shoulder she grabbed hold of it and pulled it out, Fenris gave a weak grunt as the old bone came out. Merrill looked at Fenris' face to see his eyebrows pull together as he felt the pain, then his face suddenly relaxed as the pain subsided.

Merrill then poured some more of the water from the canteen directly onto Fenris' shoulder, causing the unconscious elf to give out a weak gasp.

After finishing up Merrill leaned back trying to think of what more she could actually do. The elven mage suddenly remembered how Keeper Marethari had taught her the many ways to use elfroot to help heal sicknesses without having to make it into a potion; she just had to find some.

Merrill looked around hoping to find the distinctive plant to no avail; she then placed her arms underneath Fenris' armpits and dragged him to a nearby fallen tree and rested his head and shoulders against the trunk. Reaching into the travel sack, Merrill pull out the hooded cloak she had borrowed from the farmers and laid it over her companion; she then travelled out into the woods to search for the elfroot.