A/N. Here it is, the last chapter I have ready to go. I swear I will see you all again sometime to complete the story, but for now...
I'd like to thank you all for reading, and also a big thanks to those who have reviewed too :)
I will leave you with a fic recommendation; Last Supper by Isabeau of Greenlea. Its a tearjerker just to warn you guys ;P.
10.
The next morning, four days since the failed Battle of Ostegar, I rise fresh from my pelts in the middle of the Healing tents. Twice during the night I woke to someone puking their guts up – one literally, who I just put out of his misery, the second poor sod was just in so much pain I had to use a sleep spell on him.
After some dry tack and biscuits and a pot of herbal tea for breakfast I made my rounds of the fields. With my magic working its way through their systems many of the patients are doing better, but most still need time, time which I do not think they have.
At noon dead bodies will be burnt on a pyre, most from here, but a few people have died in the refugee camp, and some of the old and frail have died from stress. Looking over to the chantry I see that two carts are being readied, a crowd of people are waiting anxiously around them; more people are finally leaving. I plan to leave Lothering too, but not away from the Wilds, Leliana's strange dream yesterday has focused me into making a last effort to track a Warden down.
As if summoned the red-head appears before me, along with the three other healers, to help in the fields.
"You are leaving to find them soon, no?" She asks as we wait for our turns to grab a health potion or poultice pack.
"Lunch time." I answer her quietly. "I will work here for a couple of hours before stopping to wash myself off, and then I will slip off with my horse." I sigh. "Speed is of the essence, but I am honestly not hopeful of my chances of finding anyone alive."
Leliana tsk's. "Have faith, Master Healer, I would not have had my dream if none lived." She brightly replies.
I shrug but manage a small smile for the optimistic young woman. I cannot help the pessimistic thought that it will not be Alistair and Duncan I find, because Fate is cruel. I should not be selfish though; I shall be happy to see any Warden.
By lunchtime I have yet more body fluids soaking into my tunic, making my stench so bad even I cannot ignore it, and I am sadly far too used to the smells. Leliana cannot stand to be within five feet of me so she escorts me off for a bath with a colluding wink.
After finally scrubbing the last of the stains from my jerkin and tipping the water from the 'bath' off in a corner I retrace my steps through the stone-hewn chantry. Inside is cosy with its dark stained oak pews, smooth grey flagstones on the floor, and lit by many a candle. There are a handful of bookcases packed tightly with books or vellum scrolls much to my surprise; I perhaps wrongfully picture that much literature to be in the bigger richer city chantries. The half dozen sisters are milling around either chatting between themselves or offering what little comfort they can to a few locals praying. One Templar is inside ostensibly to guard the 'Mother' but he seems to be as chatty as the sisters.
I gladly take a breath of fresh air – the incense they use is nice, but far too heavy in the enclosed space – and turn to find Leliana waiting with Rowan already saddled and packed up with my bedrolls and a pack of food and skins of water.
"Be careful, Esme." She gravely whispers once I am settled in my makeshift cloth saddle.
"You should pack Leliana, and if I am not back within a week you should think about leaving." I tell her quietly. Few people are out here now – the cart long gone – but I do not wish for someone to overhear and entice a true panic.
She shakes her head but her face is pale with fear. "Hurry." She bids one last time. I nod sharply and gee Rowan into a trot. I need to leave the village fast before people wonder where I am going.
Just to the south and west of the refugee field the sandy coloured bricks of the Tevinter built highway gleams in the midday sun. I angle Rowan directly to the stones keeping an eye on the milling civilians.
Luckily no one gives me any notice as Rowans hooves clop loudly on the stones and the highway is free for several furlongs. It is not until the landscape rises up on either side of me that I become uneasy.
There is a length of craggy land that separates the Kokari Wilds from the south east region of Ferelden, starting just to the west of Lothering and reaching nearly all the way to the city of Gwaren on the coast. Naturally at the moment it is a godsend; the Darkspawn have not decided to navigate the crags and so are kept in the Wilds, but it will unfortunately funnel the creatures west towards Lothering and probably further to Redcliffe.
The closer I get to the Wilds the narrower the highway gets and after an hour of trotting I spot a group of shining armour ahead. A wide cart with two oxen side by side could just about squeeze through now, and I realise that this is a lovely choke point for any resistance, and now the shining armour makes sense; Lothering's Templars seem to be setting up a barricade or three.
To my relief the Templar that had met and helped me yesterday is amongst the group thus with much persuasion he let me through. Not without considerable trepidation and argument I admit, but us Healers are looked upon with such awe we tend to get away with venturing to places most are not allowed. Or so it seems anyway.
From here the highway becomes very broken since it is not well tended, but enough remains to light a winding path down through the crags and into the Wilds bog-land. It is not an easy transition; trees and lush grass have tried to encroach down the hard crags and into the flooded earth but they come in strange clumps, and at the bottom on the flat land seem to mostly be strangled by native rushes.
What unnerves me the most aside from lack of cover is the lack of wildlife. Birds are abundant true, the predator birds preferring the high crags with the smaller birds nesting in the sparse trees or water birds in the brushes, but no land animals like deer or rabbit. Nor are there fish; the water is not deep enough yet to accommodate them. It all makes for little noise which to me, who has literally spent all my life wandering, is absolutely nerve wracking, mind shatteringly weird.
I press on nonetheless.
~#~#~#
Night-time is incredibly stressful now. No longer can I get any restful sleep. Where before I would wake every four hours, unless on a specific healer duty, yet sleep deeply, I now wake every four hours from a restless doze. The reason is that the runic ward schemes I use for detection of and protection from enemies do not anchor in the watery bog-land. I am left with flimsy or fluctuating (or both) wards unable to protect or detect anything bigger than a rat three feet away.
Not restful at all.
Nor is the constant chattering. It seems that the Darkspawn can sense the magic charging my ward schemes, and then once they are close enough, no doubt the fresh meat of a female – although not prolific by anyone's standards (we think due to our immortality the gods took much of our fertility as payment).
Of course it is only a theory that Darkspawn take the young females to mate with, because, in all the centuries of Warden Chronicles none have seen a female Darkspawn. I suppose that for all we know they are spat out fully formed from pools of taint, but then why do they take female's of a child-bearing age?
Thinking of these horror story histories is not helping. My mood or my sleep. I fear to look in the bog water for my reflection must be ghastly by now – I can almost feel the dark circles under my eyes.
#~#~#~#
A week from Lothering the circling scavenger-like Darkspawn finally deem me weak enough to 'ambush'.
It was not the most intelligent one ever; true it would have fooled any city-slicker or a sheltered maiden, but I am pretty sure I look like neither of those. Surely my pelts, worn clothes, sun-kissed skin, worn cart and predator-like alertness are a testament to that. Then again these are the generally mindless Darkspawn I am talking about.
As it was I spotted their shifting shapes amongst the trees and little brush cover, smelt their rotting flesh well before I saw them, and eventually saw the gleam of sunlight off their rusty weapons and armour.
I drop from Rowan instantly, unwilling to put my horse in any further danger, and hastily mock up a protective rune array around her; it won't keep out a really determined foe, but it should give me a few precious seconds to turn on them.
Sure enough, when my feet squelch on a particularly boggy part of the 'road' the group of dark creatures strike; there are eight in all, only one being a tall Hurlock, better armoured than normal – their leader. All of them have the same glazed dead eyes and rictus blood-thirsty grin.
The bog seems to do little to slow them down; their footing is strangely sure, almost like mountain goats, as they bound from the trees and brush with horrible eagerness. I feel fear creep chillingly up my spine.
As a Healer I usually use my magic on people, and rarely, animals, to their benefit (having taken Oaths to do no harm) but I am not restricted to not using offensive magic, I can use it very well in fact, but I do prefer to use my bladed staff and only use my offensive magic in overwhelming odds. Such as now.
Waiting for the group to close in on me to a point that any but a Warden would flinch at I unleash the tide of magic I had been storing since I had entered the Wilds.
In a wide circle around us the water sizzles hotly, bubbling as if boiling, as forks of lilac-white lightning arch up from the ground into the stormy sky above. The less watery bits of grass and rushes quickly burn; smoking and black under the onslaught.
The first charge of lightening is silent, but then sound seems to catch up with movement and the waters sizzling is drowned out by a crackling sound just below ear-ringing level.
All eight of the Darkspawn are caught in the vicious circle of lightning. Conjuring is my weakest point, but if something is already there, like the storm that was already brewing even if there is no thunder or lightening just yet, then it is some of my strongest magic next to healing.
They shriek and snarl, scream inhumanly, and writhe, contorting strangely in their agony. Within second their rotting flesh begins to smoke a little, and across their faces I can see it begin to blacken. Their smell becomes even worse, indescribable.
I stand serenely in the middle of this chaos. Rowan is pawing at the ground nervously a little-ways off. My left hand is upraised, helping me focus my magic into continuously fueling the lighting, while my right has already whipped my staff from my back. It is very unlikely the group will survive; I am not so powerful, but I have a huge mana pool, so I do not doubt I will kill them before my mana runs out, but better safe than sorry.
Finally, their death is on them. Their shriek ups to a whole new level, hoarse almost, and then just as suddenly cuts out, all of them dropping inelegantly to the bog, as if they were puppets whose strings had been cut.
My lightening fizzles out just in time for me to hear a human sounding shout. My ears ring in the dead silence that follows.
Around the clump of trees twenty foot in front of me a most bizarre foursome charges into sight. Three humans and a large well-muscled dog I recognise as the prized Ferelden Mabari.
"Oh."
The word pours from both me and one of the two males. It is more a sound of surprise and acknowledgement than anything. The expression of awe and mistrust on the middle mans – possible the leaders – stubbly face makes me smirk though.
He is of medium human height yet stockily built, making him seem shorter. He has an open-faced helmet which allows me to see that is eyes are grey and his hair is close to chestnut brown. Chainmail and Longsword comprise his arms. The Mabari, big for even its kind, presses into his left thigh. She is a lovely tan colour with blue kaddis markings.
To his left is a tall man with a closed-faced helmet in splintmail with a sword hilt poking over his left shoulder. A shield is strapped to his right arm. To the right of the leader is a tall slender woman. Dark bitter-chocolate hair compliments her pale complexion and hawk-like golden eyes. Her clothes are dotted with raven feathers. She reeks of entropy and animals.
"A Gypsy, here?" She comments slyly.
I snarl silently back. "A daughter of Flemeth, let off her leash?"
Her magic flares around us for a second in anger and frustration and embarrassment – I hit a mark. The leader laughs sourly. The tall armour clad man however lets out a bright too familiar laugh.
P.S I'm so sorry for the cliff hanger! I might see if I can get one more chapter out, no promises tho!