She smelled Lothering long before she saw it.
A pall of smoke lay over the land, casting the sun's light into grey haze, and beneath the scents of burned wood and grass lay the odor of scorched flesh that had begun to rot. Underlying it all was the stench of the Blight. Leliana had smelled it often enough when they fought darkspawn: the sickly-sweet smell of decay and corruption, the coppery tang of blood, and…something else. An acrid and bitter undertone that defied description and kept a near-constant surge of bile waiting at the back of her throat. It smelled like nothing else in this world, and while it had been overwhelming when she was locked in combat with the darkspawn, she had always been able to leave it behind quickly once they fell. Now it filled her world, growing stronger with every step she took.
She stumbled and fell to her knees, retching into the grass. She'd had little besides water in her stomach to begin with, and she'd already lost the fight with nausea several times since she had stumbled to her feet from what had passed as her last attempt at sleep. There was nothing left to bring up, and still her stomach tried, heaving until white starbursts filled her vision and her arms and legs wavered, threatening to withdraw even the halfhearted support they offered. She curled her fingers into the grass, feeling the tender blades crush in her grip and pull free of the spongy spring turf from which they grew. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, waiting for the worst to pass before she pushed herself to her feet again and set off, one plodding footstep after another.
She didn't know what she was going to do when she finally reached what remained of Lothering. No…that wasn't really true. She would, in all likelihood, die. There were darkspawn in Lothering, after all, and in her present condition, she would be unable to offer much in the way of a fight. The time for fighting was past, anyway. She had already failed them, and to join them in death was no more than she deserved.
The little town had been a haven for her when she had needed it most, and the Chantry had shown her the gift of the Maker's mercy, helped her to cast off the trappings of a life that had nearly killed her. She had been happy there, at peace for the first time in years; why had she left? The power of her vision had faded beneath the grinding reality of being trapped for days on end among companions whose attitudes ranged from indifferent to hostile. Alistair had been kind enough, but even he thought that she was crazy. To the rest of them, she had been the Orlesian, the spy, since Morrigan had so gleefully dragged the truth of her past from her that night, and Talia - what she had seen in the girl's face: revulsion, anger, betrayal, had brought home truths that she had tried hard to hide from herself, even as she sought redemption.
The life of a bard had always been a game to her. That was simply how she had been taught; if you got what you were after without getting caught, you won. Though assassinations had never been a major portion of her duties, she had killed on many occasions, and set up betrayals not dissimilar to Howe's overthrow of Highever on many others. It was all a part of the unending games of intrigue that ran almost constantly between the noble houses of Orlais, and lives lost, when they were thought of at all, were just another way of keeping score.
She had always known that the men and women that she killed had families: spouses, children, but she had never allowed herself to dwell upon it. Those widows and orphans had now been given a face, however, and Leliana knew that there had almost certainly been someone very like what she had once been at Highever, laying the groundwork that Rendon Howe would not have dirtied his hands with.
How many orphans like Talia had she created? How many husbands or wives left behind? And she still lived, while those at Lothering, who lived lives of service and sacrifice, had died. Despite her words, she had always clung to the hope that the town could be completely evacuated before the Blight descended, and the news that it had not been had shattered her. She knew that the Revered Mother would never have left the chantry as long as a soul remained to tend, and that Ser Bryce and his templars would not abandon their duty; who else had remained? Miriam? Devons? They had been her home and family for two years, and if they had treated the beliefs that she had come to hold with disdain, they had not permitted it to affect the sanctuary that they had offered her. She should have remained there, helped to get the townsfolk and refugees all to safety, instead of haring off in search of adventure under the guise of piety.
She was on the West Road now, and cobblestones replaced the grass beneath her feet. The raised highway that crossed the marshes to the west of town bore evidence of the violence that had come there: broken pillars, crumbled edges, crates and boxes left where they had fallen in flight, contents scattered by a foe who had no interest in pillaging, and there ahead…
"No." The word fell from her lips in a moan, and she broke into a weak run, fell and scrambled up again, barely feeling the abraded skin on her palms, seeing only the blood on templar armor and Chantry robes beside the overturned wagon ahead.
The stench of death rose, overwhelming even the darkspawn smell, but she ignored it as she dropped to her knees beside the lifeless body of the Chantry sister, waving away the cloud of flies. Between the wounds that had killed her and the decay, her face was all but gone, but Leliana recognized Evanne's dark hair, and the moan rose to a keening sob. The girl had been tenderhearted and kind, utterly devoted to her calling, but still delighting in Leliana's tales and songs. She had been a friend.
The templar had been killed even more brutally than Evanne, but she thought that she could discern Talbot's blonde locks beneath the blood of his crushed skull. The boy had only been assigned to Lothering since the previous winter, so endearingly sober and eager to please. Other bodies surrounded the wreckage of the wagon, which looked like the one that the greedy merchant had owned, but she recognized no more, and not just because the bodies were decaying. Many of them were missing great chunks of flesh, torn from the face, the arms, the legs and torsos, leaving gaping holes where flies buzzed and maggots writhed.
"They eat you," old Barlin had proclaimed with an authority that had never felt the need of experience to back it up. "Eat you like a roasted capon, and if you're lucky, you're dead before they start."
She lifted her eyes, fighting to see through the tears. The haze of smoke had resolved into individual columns that rose fitfully into the eastern sky, and she could just make out what remained of the old windmill that marked Lothering's western boundary. Pushing herself to her feet once more, she drew the daggers sheathed at each hip and started forward, down the stone ramp and onto the dirt road that led into town. She saw no more bodies, but the grass and trees looked yellowed stunted…blighted.
The windmill was a blackened husk, the charred arms reaching heavenward for a salvation that had not been granted. Beyond that, she could see the smoking ruins of the town, scorched timbers jutting up from the wreckage that every structure had been reduced to, and now she saw her first darkspawn.
It was a small band: no more than a dozen hurlocks and genlocks accompanying a single emissary, distinguished from the others by the barbaric bone headdress. They were all clustered together, and some crouched on the ground, tearing great mouthfuls away from…
"NO!" The scream that tore from her throat was raw with pain and grief, and their eyes turned to her as she ran forward, anger giving her a new strength. She heard them laugh, a cruel, snarling sound, and they moved to surround her, plainly in no hurry. She felt the first real tremor of fear; she lunged, sweeping out with a blade, but her target evaded her easily, knocking the blade from her weakened fingers. She shifted her remaining dagger to her right hand, knowing that it was only a matter of time; five days with little food, water or sleep had taken their toll.
Maker, let me kill one of them. Just one. She didn't pray for a quick death; she deserved no more grace than the others in Lothering had been given. She wanted only a small measure of justice for the nameless templar whose corpse had become nothing more than food for these monstrosities, and for the gentle girl who had come so close to escape. She backed up, turning until she faced the emissary and raising the dagger in a defiant challenge.
"Just you," she croaked out, her voice rusty from disuse, "or do you fear me so much?"
She had never spoken to the darkspawn before, never given any thought to whether the creatures even possessed the ability to understand human speech, but this one evidently did. The lipless mouth stretched into a horrid rictus, the red-rimmed eyes burning down at her as it uttered a harsh command in its own tongue, causing the others to draw back as it stepped closer to her, drawing a blood crusted sword from a tattered belt at its hip.
Armored footsteps sounded on the ground. The emissary raised its gaze from Leliana, but Talia was already upon it, knocking the bard to the ground as she passed, her sword flickering like lightning in the hazy air. Truly flickering, Leliana realized dazedly, wondering if she was hallucinating, for the the sword the Warden was wielding was not her family's blade, but another longsword, the metal an odd silver-blue and coruscating with magic.
Always take out the spell caster first. It was a tactic they had quickly established when they fought together, and one that Talia now put into brutal practice, slashing the throat to the spine and opening the belly of her target with two savage sweeps, then spinning and backing away from the ragged circle with a taunting laugh as the emissary fell.
"Who's next?" she queried with deliberate insolence, but when one lunged for her, she parried it and danced back further, just out of reach, striking the hilt of her sword to her shield in a ringing challenge, the shimmering blade flaring brighter at the contact. "Come on, then!"
As one, they moved to follow her, Leliana seemingly forgotten, and the bard felt a swell of panic. It was not a hallucination if they saw her, too, and not even in her most manic rage could Talia hope to defeat so many. The Warden was going to die…because of her. She saw the young warrior take two more steps back and stumble, falling to the ground.
No! She scrambled through the dust, her fingers closing around the hilt of the dagger she had lost, struggling to rise. Their backs were to her; she could -
A heavy weight pinned her unexpectedly to the earth. "Stay down!" Alistair's voice hissing in her ear as he pressed her down, pulling his shield over them both. A flare of heat flashed by overhead, then blossomed in front of them, a blast of hot air rushing back over them as the fireball exploded, sending the darkspawn flying in all directions.
Talia sprang up from where she had dropped before the wash of heat had passed, the sweep of her shield knocking back a genlock as it tried to rise, and her sword separating its head from its shoulders. She was lunging at another before the body of the first had hit the ground. Alistair was on his feet a moment later, drawing his sword from its sheath as he moved to cover her back. "For the Grey Wardens!"
"Katara, bas!" Sten's rumbling shout announced his arrival, his massive blade cleaving through the darkspawn like a scythe reaping grain. Beside him, Brego's teeth rent through flesh and sinew in a spray of black blood. The ground shook as Shale's massive fists pulverized his chosen opponent, and the air came alive with magic: lightning, frost, fire, Morrigan's voice rising and falling as she cast spell after spell, separating friend from foe as cleanly as any blade.
Leliana sat on the ground, watching the rout with a curiously detached sense of bemusement. She should be helping them, but instead, she found her gaze drawn past the fighting, to the ruins of the Chantry. The daggers slipped from her hands as she pushed herself upright, weaving around the edges of the battle, her eyes fixed upon the doorframe, the blackened wooden doors swaying in the wind. Through it, she could see the charred remains of the pews and the altar, the statue of Andraste toppled from its pedestal, shattered and coated with soot, the candles melted into so many puddles of wax. The roof had been burned away, leaving only the charred timbers overhead, like the ribs of some great dead beast.
Tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked, and she allowed her legs to fold beneath her for the last time. Behind her, the sounds of combat came to an abrupt halt, and Talia's voice spoke up.
"Spread out, look for any survivors."
Sten's reply: "That is hardly likely. Our time would be put to better use -"
"Just do it, damn it!"
It was a lost cause. Leliana knew it, but she couldn't speak through the sobs that choked her, couldn't look away from the ravaged remains of the tiny building that had once welcomed a weary and wounded soul into its heart.
Steel clattered to the ground, and Talia was kneeling beside her, hugging her wordlessly. She sagged against the Warden, aware of Alistair dropping to his knees behind them, his greater embrace enfolding them both, Brego nosing under Talia's arm with a low whine.
"You shouldn't have come," she sobbed out, burying her face in her hands. "I should have died with them. The vision was a lie!"
"No, it wasn't." Talia's voice in her ear, thick with emotion and awe. "Look." A gloved hand beneath her chin, gently lifting her head. "Look, Leliana," she urged again, and the bard obeyed, her eyes sliding past the smoldering ruin, into the Chantry garden.
It had been burned, as well, and the stunted rosebush in the corner was no longer brown, but black, its spindly branches completely bereft of leaves, but at the end of one stem, the rose still bloomed, a rich and vibrant red, the petals as soft as if it had just opened.
She awoke in her tent, and spent several moments trying to remember how she had gotten there. The previous five nights, she had simply collapsed to the ground when she could no longer walk and dozed fitfully until she was able to continue.
Slowly, the events of the day returned to her, but past the fight, everything remained fuzzy. She thought that she might have grown hysterical after they had failed to find any survivors. She had not honestly expected that they would, but exhaustion had decimated her defenses. She had a vague and odd recollection of floating on a swaying stone pallet, but beyond that, nothing.
She pushed away the blankets, found that she had been peeled out of her filthy armor and clothes and put into her nightdress. Not that it had done much for the smell; she was in desperate need of a bath.
The smell… She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully, but she could not detect the darkspawn stench that had been so pervasive earlier in the day, nor the scents of death and decay. They had moved well away from Lothering, then. The odor of herbs and meat wafting from the fire made her stomach give a sudden gurgle.
Pulling a blanket around her shoulders, she ducked through the flap of the tent. The blackness of the sky, with its profusion of stars, proclaimed the night to be well advanced. Talia sat beside the fire, staring into the flames, with Brego stretched out at her side. No one else was in evidence. The mabari lifted his head as Leliana emerged, giving a soft chuff of greeting. Talia lifted her eyes and rolled smoothly to her feet.
"How are you?" she asked in a quiet voice as she approached, dark eyes watching Leliana carefully.
"All right, I think," the bard replied, surprised by how much effort it took to speak. She was still almost unbelievably tired. "Hungry," she admitted, almost ashamedly. After what she had seen, how could she possibly have an appetite? But with the air no longer filled with nauseating odors, her body had no qualms about demanding what it had shown no interest in over the previous days, giving another audible rumble.
Talia nodded, seeming neither shocked nor disapproving. "I - we tried to wake you at suppertime, but you were pretty well out." She nodded toward the fire. "Sit down and I'll get you something."
Leliana wanted to protest that she could do it, but she could feel her legs shaking beneath her already. She tottered to the fireside and stood for a moment, unsure if she could lower herself without falling. Brego rose to his feet and lumbered to her side, sliding his head beneath her hand, and she gratefully leaned into his mass as she sat.
Talia glanced back from where she crouched beside the fire, ladling stew from the iron pot into a wooden bowl. "Don't think you're getting a free snack out of that," she warned him. The dog whined a protest, sinking to the ground beside Leliana.
"He's sweet," Leliana said, scratching behind Brego's ears, earning a contented rumble from the beast.
"He's a slave to his stomach," Talia countered with no real heat as she turned from the fire, holding the bowl out to Leliana, waiting to see that the bard's hands held it steady before removing her own. As she turned back to the fire, Leliana quickly fished a chunk of meat from the bowl and dropped it to the ground in front of the mabari. It was gone before she had finished blinking, and well before Talia turned back to offer her a hunk of bread. "But, since he did catch the rabbits for dinner -" In her other hand, she held a raw hindquarter that she tossed to the dog. Leliana smiled, though she had to turn her eyes away from the bloody flesh as Brego began to eat.
"Sorry," Talia said with a grimace as she settled to the ground on the other side of the dog. "I can send him away to eat -"
"No." Leliana felt the dog's muscles bunching underneath her arm and shook her head, leaning against him. "He needs to eat, too. I'll be fine."
The mabari settled back to the ground and continued devouring his prize. Leliana turned her attention to her own meal. The bread was a traveler's loaf, and had to be soaked in the broth of the soup before it could be eaten, but the soup itself was good: wild onions and garlic, mushrooms and tubers had been added to the rabbit, along with a delicate blend of herbs. "Morrigan cooked, I take it?" Sten's notion of cooking was tossing some source of meat onto the fire until the outside was black, and Alistair's dishes all seemed to have the same bland flavor and consistency. Talia was learning, but the subtlety of the seasoning bespoke an accomplished touch.
Talia nodded. "We all ate it, so it should be safe," she said with a hint of a smile. The witch's herb lore extended beyond the culinary and healing arts, and Leliana had seen her harvesting poisonous plants on numerous occasions, though she had never seen Morrigan make use of them.
"She doesn't like me much, does she?"
The Warden shrugged. "She's never been around this many people for so long before. I think it scares her."
The bard stared at Talia in disbelief. "Scares her? I've never seen her acting afraid of anything!"
"She hides it pretty well," Talia admitted, "but you can see it sometimes. She starts sniping at Alistair more when she's afraid. I don't think she hates him quite as much as she wants us to think; he's just a good target because she can goad him easily."
"Maybe," Leliana agreed dubiously. She'd never seen anything remotely like fear in the witch, and her loathing of the Warden who had once trained to be a templar certainly seemed genuine, but Talia had spent more time with her. "Who else is on watch?"
"Shale." Talia tipped her head upward, and Leliana could make out the golem's massive form at the top of the hollow in which they were camped.
"He carried me, didn't he?" she asked, suddenly connecting the feeling of floating on stone. "I didn't think that he would do that after his master made him do it for so long."
"I asked him," Talia said simply. "It seems to work better than ordering."
"Yes," Leliana said, feeling her throat tighten. "It usually does." She stirred her soup for a moment, then said, "You have a new sword, yes?" An inane question, perhaps, but she was not quite ready to ask her other question and receive the answer that she knew would be forthcoming.
Talia nodded, glancing down at the sword at her hip. "Mikhael Dryden gave it to me before we left Soldier's Peak. He said that he saw a star fall from the sky a few months ago, and when he went looking for it, he found a big, smoking hole in the ground with a chunk of metal at the bottom: starmetal, he called it. He made a sword from it, could have sold it for a fortune, especially after Sandal enchanted it, but he said that he wanted it to help end the Blight."
She grasped the hilt, sliding the blade a few inches out of its sheath, revealing the silver-blue of the metal, the intricately etched lyrium runes along the flat of the blade still gleaming faintly. "He calls it Starfang. I didn't want to give up my father's sword, but...it's sharper than anything I've ever seen, and with Sandal's enchantments, it cuts through almost anything but solid rock." She ducked her head, looking almost ashamed as she returned the sword to its scabbard. "I left the Cousland sword with Mikhael; he's going to clean it up and put a good edge on it, but even then..." She trailed off, her eyes on the ground.
"It is a family heirloom," Leliana assured her gently. "It should receive such care, and there is no shame in taking up a more effective weapon." She stopped short of saying that Talia's parents would have approved; though she was certain it was true, she lacked the courage to test that delicate subject again so soon. "That was not why you insisted that Alistair take the Grey Warden sword that we found at the keep, though, was it?"
Talia gave her a sidelong glance and shook her head. "Being a Grey Warden means more to him," she said with a slight shrug, "and the sword I had was better than the one he'd been carrying. It made more sense for him to have it."
"Yes," Leliana agreed, smiling warmly at the girl. Being a Grey Warden might not mean a great deal to Talia, but it was a duty that she took seriously, and the past tragedy that had been revealed at Soldier's Peak seemed to have largely drawn her out of the self-absorption of her grief. Perhaps now the closeness that was growing between she and Alistair might take a more romantic turn. The notion appealed to her: that something as precious as love might still be able to blossom amid so much pain and loss. "What happened? In Lothering, I mean. After I -" She hesitated awkwardly.
"Fainted?" Talia finished for her, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "You should finish eating first."
The bard obeyed, and though the soup had suddenly lost its appeal, she emptied the bowl and finished the bread, as well, washing it down with the waterskin that Talia passed her. "Tell me, please," she said, setting the empty bowl aside for Brego to polish and drawing the blanket more closely around herself.
Talia nodded. "We didn't find anyone else alive," she said heavily, turning her eyes back to the fire. "We looked for a bit longer after you fainted, then we piled the dead together and burned them. We didn't have time for a proper pyre, but at least now, they can't be desecrated any longer." Her face was drawn and weary, her eyes shining a bit too brightly in the light of the flames, but no tears fell.
Leliana was not so strong. "How many?" she asked, feeling the dampness on her cheeks.
"Ser Bryce and eight templars," Talia replied softly. "Elder Miriam and the Revered Mother." She'd expected it, but the confirmation still hurt, and she let out a gasping sob.
Talia reached across Brego, laying a hand on her shoulder. "There were about a dozen more that I didn't recognize," she went on, "and another ten in the wagon with the other templar and the Chantry sister. We burned their bodies, too, as we left." She tilted her head until she was looking into Leliana's eyes. "There were hundreds of people here before. They got almost all of them out."
"The Revered Mother would not have left, so long as even one remained," Leliana whispered. "Nor would Miriam."
"No, I wouldn't expect that they would have," the Warden agreed. "They were good people."
"Why -" Leliana began and stopped, her mouth working soundlessly. "Why did you come after me? You had to know there would be no survivors."
"Well, there was you," Talia reminded her, "or do you think that the Revered Mother would have wanted you to throw your life away?"
"I don't -" She broke off again, because she did know. She lifted her eyes to Talia's face. The brown eyes were gentler than she had ever seen, but beneath the compassion, she could see the pain that the girl still would not surrender to. "But why? When you know what I am?"
Talia drew her hand back, wrapping her arms around her knees as her gaze returned to the dancing flames. "I can barely remember what I was like before," she said at last. "That girl seems so silly to me now. Innocent. Ignorant. So sure that the way things had always been was the way they would always be. I want to shake her. Warn her."
She shook her head slowly. "I can't believe that it's been only a little more than two months since Highever…fell. It seems like a lifetime. Maybe some of that girl will come back to me in time. She doesn't seem as much of a stranger as she did a few weeks ago, but I'll never be her again. Not really."
Brego whined softly, butting his head against his mistress' leg, and she dropped a hand to his neck and began to scratch. "Two months," she repeated softly, turning her head back to Leliana, dark eyes somber. "If I can change to the point that I barely know myself in so little time, what could two years do? I know what you were," she went on before Leliana could speak, "and I know what you are now."
Her hand left Brego's neck, slipping into the pouch at her hip. "I found this with - at the Chantry," she said, withdrawing her hand and extending it toward Leliana. The bard caught the gleam of firelight on metal between the girl's fingers. "I thought that you should have it."
"I…can't." She could see the medallion now, Andraste's flame in bronze, softened by the fire, but not melted. She shook her head, refusing to take the icon. "I am not worthy to wear it."
"Then it should be returned to the Chantry," Talia replied, undeterred. "By one of their own, don't you think?" Her hand remained extended, her gaze unwavering, her apology hovering unspoken between them.
Slowly, Leliana reached out. Her hand closed around the medallion, then remained where it was, resting in Talia's. After a moment's hesitation, the Warden's fingers folded around hers.
A.N. - Potential spoiler alert for new readers.
This is the first chapter where I made any significant edits to content, primarily by bringing the Starfang sword into Talia's possession earlier to correct a big logic hole in the original version. The starmetal blade plays a key role in the next chapter, but a reviewer (can't remember who, but thanks!) pointed out that my account of how she got it would have required them to travel from Redcliffe and bypass the Circle tower to go all the way back north to Soldier's Peak when they were trying to enlist the Circle's aid in freeing Connor from the demon...not exactly the time for a side trip that would take better than a week. I left it alone initially, but it is one of the things that always bugged me.
So I decided to have Mikhael Dryden be the one to have found the starmetal and have the already-made sword on hand to give to Talia as the Wardens were leaving the keep to track down Leliana, and because I had already put Bodahn and Sandal at Soldier's Peak, getting the enchanting done on it was easy. Since I had mentioned in Chapter 8 that Talia had refused to trade the Cousland sword for Asturian's Might, I also had Leliana nudge Talia about her reasons to reveal a more practical motivation than sentiment alone, along with a growing awareness of and responsiveness to her companions' feelings.
Another much smaller change was to have Talia speak of funeral pyres, rather than burial, as proper custom in dealing with the dead at Lothering. When I was writing the original version, I hadn't spent a lot of time researching the lore of the game, so it wasn't until later that I realized that the Andrastean religion uses funeral pyres instead of burial for their dead. Fairly minor, but like I said, it's the little details that drive me nuts once I know about them.
Plot-wise, this chapter definitely marks a turning point in the relationship between Talia and Leliana, though there is still a long way to go before things take a romantic shift. I've read a number of excellent stories where love at first sight, or at least on a faster timeline, is dealt with in a believable manner, but Talia's character wouldn't have lent itself well to that quick of a progression even if she weren't dealing with her grief and anger (and at this point in the original version, I hadn't yet completely made up my mind as to what the romantic pairing would be).
I'll likely be writing a short installment for 'A Dog's Life' showing the companions approach to Lothering and the fight with the darkspawn, because this episode does involve a major shift in Talia, and it is something that Brego is bound to notice.