A Walk in the Woods
5 Firstfall, 9:30
We have spent a better part of the day preparing to depart for the Wending Woods in the morning. I will be taking all four Wardens with me, as we will also be investigating Mervis' claim that there may be a darkspawn lair in the woods. I think it best to leave Lucius and Rosa here to help our guard protect the keep and the surrounding area. The guard is now twenty-five strong with the new recruits, and Sers Aiden and Marcus, who have decided to stay with us. However, we will have many people in and out of the gates all day long, and between the keep, the farmlands and the city, our soldiers can only be in so many places. It may be in our interest to breed mabari hounds, and I have asked Varel to give the idea consideration and to look into the state of the kennels we have.
Our little community continues to strengthen and the inner bailey's market is now quite busy all day. People aren't only there to shop, but also to meet to discuss plans for the surrounding lands, the rebuilding of homes within and around the keep's walls, commercial ventures, the gardens and conservatory, hunting, fishing…on it goes. I couldn't be happier with the results so far. I have asked Varel to keep the great hall open for this same purpose on days when the weather is miserable, so that the people of the keep will always have a place to gather. It has occurred to me that the keep's chapel should be restored for our spiritual needs and I have added this to the growing list of projects that Myles has agreed to undertake.
Some merchants have arrived from the north east coastal trade route and I believe Mistress Woolsey is quite pleased with the discussions she's had with them so far. I am very grateful to Lillith for her help in building our network of merchants, and have offered her a small cottage within the outer bailey, near Yuriah's and Alexi's homes. She has accepted and agreed to use the keep as her base.
For the past few days, Anders has been getting used to wearing a suit of armor. He has chosen to use a sword and shield and has been sparring with Ser Aiden. I am not surprised that Anders has taken so quickly to the armor and weaponry, as I expected that having a defense against templars would appeal to him. As strong as he is, fists are not effective against swords. His mastery of the magical talents he possesses is evident in the way he has become accustomed to casting without the use of a staff.
As for me, Wade made an entirely new set of armor for me at Zevran's request. It is fashioned from the same white steel as the daggers I gave him on Satinalia. Wade engraved a griffon on the breast plate and Zevran had him engrave ivy around the wrists of the gloves and on the boots, too. The suit fits perfectly and can be adjusted with additional plates, so it should work well for the duration of my pregnancy. Wade is a genius and Zevran continues to surprise me.
~ KA
Kallian put down her quill, closed her journal and looked up to find Zevran watching her from where he sat across from her desk in the library. "What?" she asked with a smile.
"I would ask you the same, tesora," he replied as he stood and walked to stand behind her. Putting his hands on her shoulders, he bent to kiss her head. "You look rather pleased with yourself."
"Perhaps I am. We are doing well, Anders is learning the ways of the arcane warrior and taking to armor quite nicely, and I have a wonderfully thoughtful husband. You must know of him."
"Hmm, perhaps." Zevran slid his hands over her shoulders and down to her breasts, cupping them in his hands. She gasped as he pinched her nipples through the thin fabric of her tunic and breast band, gently rolling the stiffening peaks between his thumbs and forefingers. Her breasts had become more sensitive lately, and he delighted in the responses he could pull from her by fondling her this way.
"What are you doing?" she asked breathlessly, reaching up to stroke his arms.
Zevran dipped his head down to hers to whisper in her ear. "What do you think I am doing?" he asked, taking the tip of her ear between his lips.
"Mmmm…ha…distracting me…not that I'm…asking you to…ssstop." She gasped, arching her back to press into his hands, her face and neck flushed with desire.
"Would you like to join me in our bedchamber?" He doubted they would make it that far.
She stood and turned to face him, a lusty smile on her face, and kissed him. He pulled her into a tight embrace, crushing her sensitive breasts to his chest, and their kisses became frantic. Kallian ground against Zevran, feeling him hardening, and she was overwhelmed with desire for him. Pulling him back onto her desk, she rolled them over and sat on top of him, unfastening his shirt as their mouths locked in another kiss. In their passion, they were unaware of Elspeth, who, as she passed by, quietly closed the door to the library to give them their privacy.
xXx
6 Firstfall, 9:31
The Wardens departed from the keep on foot shortly after the morning meal, their packs filled with supplies for the coming days. Kallian didn't want to risk losing the horses to darkspawn, travelling as they were without the dogs. They had enough dried rations to last for several nights of camping between the keep and the Wending Woods, and the location of numerous drinking wells marked on their map.
It was becoming a tradition for the residents of the keep to see the Wardens off, regardless of the weather, and Kallian smiled as everyone, from Varel to the staff to the smallest of children, braved the cold morning rain to gather in the outer bailey to pay their respects. Zevran took Kallian's face in his hands and kissed her good bye, drawing a murmur of approval from the onlookers.
"Be safe, tesora, and may the Maker watch over you both," he whispered to her, a hand lingering at her midriff. Turning to the others, he flashed a brilliant smile and waved. "Good luck to you, my friends. A warm hearth and a hot meal will await you upon your return. Maker watch over you."
A cheer rose from the crowd as the Wardens passed through the gates.
xXx
7 Firstfall, 9:30
The rain slowed the Wardens down and they set up camp by mid-afternoon under the shelter of a rocky outcropping so they could light a fire and dry out for the night. Nathaniel caught several rabbits, while Anders and Kallian set about making a broth for stew with root vegetables, deep mushrooms and some of the herbs and spices Zevran had sent with them. They settled back to enjoy their dinner and told stories well into the night.
After they struck camp in the morning, Kallian, Mhairi and Nathaniel took the lead while Anders and Oghren followed behind, trying to outdo one another by singing every bawdy song they knew. Kallian found herself humming along with the songs Leliana had taught them during the Blight. As the morning progressed, the forest began to get thicker, the path narrower, and Kallian and her team eventually found themselves climbing a gentle hill that took them deeper into the heart of the Wending Woods. Eventually they all paused, smelling something unsettling beneath the usual odors of the forest.
"Do you smell that?" Kallian asked, her nose wrinkling in disgust as a hand drifted to her armored belly. She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the taste of bile in her throat.
Nathaniel nodded, a grim look on his face. "I do, and it does not bode well."
"Aye," Oghren growled. "That's the stench of death."
Kallian slowly moved her head from side to side, sniffing the air, until she finally turned to their left and walked toward a cliff that dropped off into what appeared to be a dry river bed. Mhairi followed, peering into the distance with a spyglass.
"Whatever it is, it's over there somewhere," Kallian pointed to the horizon. She couldn't help but notice that the forest was getting quieter as they entered its depths.
"I see naught but hills and trees from here, Commander," Mhairi reported, collapsing the spyglass.
Anders cleared his throat. "We're going off to find the cause of that smell, are we?" Kallian simply looked at him. "Of course we are," he mumbled.
They didn't manage to get much further along the path before Kallian shouted "Darkspawn!" and they were forced to battle against a small group of the beasts.
She was surprised to find that Anders could protect them all with an arcane shield. It took her a moment to get used to the shimmering field around her, but she immediately appreciated the additional protection it afforded her. Kallian's armor performed well, giving her the mobility she needed to spin and tumble away from and between the darkspawn, without squeezing and pinching her torso. Indeed, they all fought well with their new equipment and quickly overcame their enemies. As they regained their breath, Kallian searched the corpses for anything of interest. Amongst the usual potions, poultices, coin and such, she found a necklace tucked into the breastplate of one hurlock's armor.
"This is elven," she muttered, holding the trinket up by its chain for the others to see. "Strange. I've known the occasional darkspawn to wear an enchanted accessory it's found, but this is almost like a keepsake." Shrugging, she tucked it into her own breastplate.
As Anders set fire to the corpses, Mhairi drew the group's attention to the south east.
"Smoke, Commander," she said, giving Kallian the spyglass and pointing to a rising column of black smoke in the distance.
Kallian could see that several trees were on fire and if she wasn't mistaken, a group of men were fighting walking sylvan trees, something she had first seen in the Brecilian Forest. A nearby caravan was also on fire, its contents of crates and sacks scattered around. As she stood there, the crawling feeling along her shoulders intensified and she couldn't help but feel as though she were being watched. The sensation was quite unnerving and she had to take a moment to settle her nerves before she could report her observations to her team.
"Living trees? As in walking around?" Mhairi asked, her eyes wide with disbelief and fear, knuckles white as she gripped her sword.
"I have heard of such things, Commander, but never seen them." Nathaniel's brow pulled together with more force than usual as he readied his bow and arrows.
Kallian nodded, adding, "I have a bad feeling about this. I…I think someone's watching us, you know?"
Even as she said it, she caught the others peering into the trees around them, and knew they understood. They all shared a knowing look, their bond as a team growing rapidly, and prepared themselves for a fight. Oghren took a bolstering swig from his flask and gripped his battle axe while Anders cast a protective spell on them all. Kallian pulled her own daggers out and led the group down the path toward the skirmish.
xXx
When the last of the charred sylvan trees fell to the ground, the forest was eerily silent. Some bandits had succumbed to the trees' branches, while others had turned on the Wardens only to be slain. Anders slipped into his now well-practiced routine of assessing everyone's injuries and treating them according to severity, beginning with Kallian who had a branch protruding from the armor covering the fleshy part of her left arm. She refused to let him put her to sleep and instead endured having the wood removed with only a minor pain-relieving spell, her teeth clamped down on a pair of leather gloves they'd found in her pack to prevent her from screaming out loud. After a break for healing, what armor repairs they could manage, and some food and water, they continued along the path as it turned to the north, toward a bridge.
As they began to cross the bridge, a man dressed in leather armor came running down the path toward them.
"Get out of my way, I need to get out of here!" he yelled as he slid to a stop in front of Kallian, blocked by the group.
Kallian scanned the path behind him, seeing nothing. "What's wrong, can we help?"
"No! No one can help me. I just need to get out of here!" He kept looking over his shoulder as though a darkspawn horde was bearing down on him, but Kallian and the others could see nothing.
"Who's after you?" Kallian asked, continuing to scan the hill behind him.
He turned to look back the way he'd come, whispering, "The elf. She makes the trees come alive. All we wanted was some easy money from the caravans, and…"
He stopped and listened and Kallian thought she could hear the sound of wood creaking. The ground trembled beneath her feet, so much so that she nearly lost her balance. The scavenger yelped.
"Maker help me, she's here! Gotta get away…" He turned and pushed his way around Kallian and the others.
"Sodding nug humper," Oghren growled, gripping Kallian's arm to steady her.
Before Kallian could respond, a nearby overhang shook, roots shot out of the earth with a resounding cracking sound, and a moment later they retreated, revealing a scantily clad female Dalish elf. She stared down at them, anger contorting her features and making her posture rigid.
"Who are you and why are you here? Are you working for the shemlen? I would leave the forest if I were you, or it will end badly for you!" she shouted down to Kallian.
Kallian could hear Anders snorting with indignation behind her and shot him a silencing glare before looking back up at the elf, holding her hands out before her. "I mean you no harm. Why was that man afraid of you?"
"These caravans belong to the forest now. He sought to take what was not his."
"Have you been destroying the caravans?"
"After all the shemlen did to me…did to my people…this is justice! They stole my sister and likely sold her to merchants. I will not rest until I have her back! I have no quarrel with you. I would hate for that to change." The woman raised her hands and summoned a ball of roots up out of the ground around her.
"Wait!" Kallian shouted out, but it was too late. The elf was gone again, the woods quiet.
"By the stone, another bitchy witch," Oghren mumbled.
Kallian laughed uneasily; the woman had resembled Morrigan in many ways. "I don't think I want to know what happened to her to push her this far, but we have no choice." She looked up the path heading north. "Let's see what we can find."
xXx
The party moved deeper into the forest, pausing to search for tracks or any other signs of habitation. Shattered caravans dotted the landscape and crates and sacks of merchants' goods lay about. Kallian and the others put these things aside to collect later and carried on, eyes scanning the forest for signs of life. As they worked their way through the woods, Oghren spotted a rocky section of the landscape that he insisted was worth investigating. He let out a shout as he got closer to it.
"By the stone, Commander, do you know what this is? Granite, plain and simple, girlie, and there's lots of it! Mark this spot on your map, because we're gonna want this for the keep's walls."
"Girlie?" Nathaniel mumbled with the slightest hint of a smile as he made note of the granite's location on their map.
"He's a little rough around the edges, I'll give you that." Kallian grinned in response. "But he's right. Voldrik wants granite. Lucky find."
They carried on and passed what appeared to be a mine entrance, pausing to make note of it on their map, and continued up the hill until they came upon an abandoned Dalish camp. It was set within ruins atop a hill with a good view out over the surrounding forest. From the moment they stumbled upon the camp, nothing about it made any sense. A Ferelden soldier's blade had been thrust into the ground at the entrance to the camp, and a pile of similar swords and daggers had been tossed into the center of the area. The Dalish traveled in large groups, and had hallas to move their aravels, but there were only three of the moving homes here and no halla to be found anywhere. Most disturbing was a row of shallow graves nearby, which looked to have been dug recently. Kallian walked around the camp, looking into the aravels, poking through any crates and sacks that had been left out, until she finally returned to the pile of weapons. The Wardens gathered around Kallian as she stared down at the weaponry.
"Looks like there was some sort of fight." Oghren pointed to dark brown splotches on the ground. "No bodies, though, just these weapons. Hmmm." He rubbed his chin as he grumbled to himself.
Kallian hunched down over the blades. They weren't the best money could buy and some were definitely not worth using, but most simply needed to be cleaned and sharpened. "Dalish elves wouldn't use such weapons, and dwarves certainly prefer dwarven crafted swords. These blades may not be worth much, but they are worth something, and I can't imagine humans would leave them behind. I wouldn't."
Nathaniel agreed with a quick nod of his head. "This is odd."
"I don't understand this," she said, waving a hand around the camp as she stood. "So…this must be where that mage has been living, and we have to assume that the poor souls buried here are her clan members, or friends…Maker, her family? Someone comes in, attacks the camp, kills some of them, makes off with her sister, she somehow survives and now she seeks justice, revenge. Against human merchants…" Maybe merchants might leave behind weapons they couldn't repair or sell, Kallian thought to herself. Maybe someone wanted it to look that way?
A shift in the direction of the wind distracted her, bringing with it the stench they had observed earlier in the day. The sun was high in the sky and the afternoon was surprisingly warm. Her stomach lurched as she realized that whatever lay rotting to the north west was cooking as the temperatures rose. With a sigh, she turned and led her team back down the path toward the mine and then to the west. As the smell they were tracking grew stronger and drew them toward a cliff, Anders spoke.
"Are you sure you want to…I mean, don't you think you might prefer it if Nate, Oghren and I were to…"
Kallian cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Oh please, Anders, I'm not that deli…"
She stopped dead in her tracks, with a view over the cliff, unable to finish her sentence, the others gagging and retching behind her. The bodies of at least two dozen men and women in varying states of decay were scattered in a pit below them. With her keen eyesight she could see how many of them had died. Skulls bashed in, necks broken, torsos crushed. It was as horrifying and sickening as anything she had seen during the Blight and the stench was now overpowering. She doubled over and threw up, vaguely aware that someone had grabbed her by her belt to prevent her from falling into the pit below.
"Thank you, Mhairi," she gasped when she righted herself again and saw who had held her. "Oh Maker, Anders, if there is ever a next time, and I pray there never will be, please feel free to be more forceful. I did not need to see that." She walked away from the pit to lean against a tree and rinsed her mouth out with water.
"We need to…" she nodded back toward the pit. "They shouldn't be left like that, but…but we need to know who they are. I…"
Mhairi stepped forward. "Commander, after you defeated the archdemon, I helped identify the dead soldiers. I will collect any personal effects there are to be found."
"Thank you, Mhairi. I have ink, parchment and a quill in my pack." She slid her pack off her shoulders and began searching for her journal.
Oghren took them from her when she pulled them out. "I'll go with her. You drink yer water."
"Pfft. Thanks."
Within the hour, they had gathered wedding rings, necklaces, ledgers, journals and other paperwork that would identify the merchants and had packed it up. Kallian turned to Anders and nodded.
In a solemn voice, he recited a line from the Chant of Light that felt fitting. "The one who repents, who has faith, unshaken by the darkness of the world, she shall know true peace."
He cast a firestorm spell over the pit, incinerating everything that lay within it, and they continued along the path. They were headed south again, and eventually came to the dry riverbed they had first spotted when they entered this section of Wending Woods. Kallian stopped, a strange sensation tugging at her consciousness.
"What is it, Commander?" Nathaniel asked.
She closed her eyes and slipped into a meditative state. "Someone…I can feel someone else here, someone who's tainted, but not darkspawn. Not a Warden, either."
Opening her eyes again, she turned around and followed the pull of the taint up a hill to a small clearing where a campsite was set up. A wounded militiaman was lying on the ground and Kallian knew immediately that he was too tainted to be saved by the Joining ceremony. She knelt by his side as he stirred and opened his eyes.
"Don't look…don't look at me."
"Shh, it's okay. Anders, help me." Kallian pulled her canteen and a handkerchief off her belt, handing them both to Anders.
"But he's…"
She shook her head and nodded to the handkerchief. "Wet it, please, Anders."
Anders did as she asked and handed the wet cloth back to Kallian. She pressed it to the man's forehead and face, then to his lips. The relief would be temporary; the fever was raging through him.
"Who are you?" Kallian asked.
"Olaf…my name. Came with friends to drive away the elf, but the darkspawn were too quick. Ripped apart, biting teeth and slashing claws…darkness, then I awoke, flesh and bone and gristle under me, around me, everywhere. One dead, soft meat melting into the ground. I crawled away, came here, can't stand to see it."
More than one Warden behind her was gagging, Mhairi and Anders, if she had to guess. "Olaf, where did the darkspawn come from?"
"Beneath, around, from the shadows."
"But you and your friends didn't kill the elves?" She brushed strands of hair from his face and reapplied the wet cloth.
"No, no, darkspawn came first, slaughtered us, took our steel, brought it to the elven camp. Tricked us and the elf. Now she thinks we are to blame. Wants all in her rage while they watch."
Anders was appalled. "So all these people died over a misunderstanding? Maker, that's horrible. We have to stop her, tell her she's wrong. If we search the woods we might be able to find her again."
"The dark ones are curious about you, too." Olaf continued, trying to focus on Kallian. "They watch you as well as her. Can you feel them?"
Mhairi gasped. "Commander…"
"I know, Mhairi." Kallian's skin crawled at the man's words, knowing her suspicions earlier were justified, but she couldn't spare the time worrying about it. "Do you know anything about the elf's sister?"
"Sister? I have a sister. No…elf's sister. No, we didn't take her. Probably dead or eaten."
Oghren grunted and took a swig from his canteen. "That would be a blessing."
Kallian shuddered, knowing full well he was remembering the broodmother they had killed in the Deep Roads. She turned her attention back to Olaf. He was suffering, he would die a slow and painful death, and there was really only one thing she could do for him. It pained her to think it, to know that killing an innocent man, a victim of circumstance, was preferable to letting him live. It is the merciful thing to do, she told herself as she swallowed the lump in her throat.
"Olaf, I am so sorry, but there's nothing we can do for you. This disease will kill you."
"Am already dead, am already gone. Please…make it end. Please," he begged, his eyes clearing in a moment of lucidity.
Kallian swallowed hard and looked to Anders, who knelt beside her, his eyes searching hers. "Ease his pain," was all she said as she pulled a dagger from her belt. Anders' hand glowed blue momentarily and Olaf relaxed.
Smiling at Olaf, Kallian leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "May the Maker have mercy on you, Olaf." With a quick motion she thrust her dagger into his heart and placed her hand over his eyes to close them as he died.
She stood up quickly, dropped her dagger and walked several paces away, trying to contain the emotions she was feeling. All she'd witnessed here, the pointlessness of the elf's revenge, and the idea that they were pawns in some game the darkspawn were playing made her angry and sad and fearful for what was to come. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed hard, trying to shake the feeling of vulnerability that was slowly creeping into her consciousness. Oghren was at her side, holding out his canteen.
"You did the right thing, boss."
Kallian took a swig of ale and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I know, but that doesn't make it easier."
"Didn't expect it would, but it's the truth." He clapped her on the shoulder, took his canteen, and walked back to the others.
Anders stood up and looked at the dwarf. "Is she all right?"
"Yeah, she'll be fine. Him, we should burn like you folks do with your kind." He picked up Kallian's dagger and wiped it clean, sliding it into his belt to return to her later.
The Wardens stretched Olaf out and crossed his arms over his chest. Kallian turned and walked back to stand with them. Clearing her throat, she nodded to Anders. Fire danced along his fingers until he held a large ball of it in his hands and a moment later Olaf's corpse burst into flame.
The feeling that she was being watched returned as the taint danced in her veins. "We've got company!" Kallian yelled as a group of blighted wolves emerged from a stand of trees across the clearing.
Nathaniel's arrows quickly struck down two of the wolves, while another four managed to make it across the field to engage the other Wardens. Oghren bellowed out in rage and swung his battle axe in front of him, ripping the head off one wolf and knocking another into a tree several feet away. It crumpled to the base of the tree, where it stayed. Anders froze the other two wolves, allowing Mhairi and Oghren to shatter them with their blades, and it was over as quickly as it had begun.
They barely had time to catch their breath when the earth shuddered and the sound of cracking wood filled the air. The Dalish elf appeared on a nearby hill.
"Why are you still here?" she shouted, throwing her arms up in the air. "I told you to stay away from me! I warned you, this place is not for you."
Kallian shouted up at the mage, trying to keep her own anger at bay. "You don't understand, the merchants aren't responsible for this, humans didn't kill your people or take your sister, it was…"
The woman let out a shriek. "I know a human crime when I see one, I have experienced more than enough of them. You will pay for spreading their lies!" She lifted her arms and began to shout out a spell in the Dalish tongue.
"Maker!" Anders gasped, barely able to cast an arcane shield around the group before two sylvan trees near them shook and came to life.
As the Wardens turned to fight the trees, Kallian saw the elven mage run up the hill toward the abandoned camp.
"We have to stop this madness," she shouted at the others.
"I'm not arguing with you, Commander," Anders shouted back. "But I'm a little busy here!"
He ran a few steps away to put some distance between himself and the fight, and turned back toward the nearest sylvan. Protecting himself with his shield, he began mumbling. The air around him began to stir and then, quite suddenly, a thick strand of lightning shot forth from his hand, larger than any he had ever conjured, striking the first sylvan and forking out to the second. Both trees exploded into a cloud of smoldering splinters and the forest was silent once again.
Kallian and the others were dumbfounded for a moment. Even Anders looked impressed.
"Maker's balls, Anders," Kallian exclaimed when she finally found her voice. "That was brilliant!"
"Umm, thank you. I…I wasn't sure that would work. I haven't actually had a chance to try it until now." He laughed nervously, in awe of, and startled by, the power he had unleashed.
She dusted herself off, noting the others were still staring at Anders in stunned silence. "Well, then. Ah…I guess you maybe need a safe place to practice your magic. You know, so you don't have to experiment on us. Out here. With real darkspawn and such."
They looked at each other for a moment.
"Yeah, that would be a good idea," Anders agreed, bobbing his head up and down.
"Right." Kallian turned to the others, clapping her hands together to get their attention. "Okay then, I saw the elf run back toward the Dalish camp. Let's move."
xXx
The mage was standing by the graves, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She laughed when she saw the Wardens approaching.
"You will never take me alive," she said, her breathing ragged.
"I just want to talk." Kallian stayed back, hands out where the mage could see them.
"Ha, talk," she sneered in response.
"Look, can we start over, try to be…well, civil to one another? As civil as possible, considering the circumstances." She risked taking a few steps forward. "My name is Kallian Arainai, Warden Commander of the Ferelden Grey Wardens."
The mage relaxed slightly, something about Kallian's introduction catching her attention. Holding her head up high, she replied, "I am Velanna."
Kallian nodded. "Humans did not do this to you and your clan members, Velanna. It was the darkspawn."
"What? Do not be ridiculous, that is impossible. The darkspawn are mindless."
"Until recently, I believed that, Velanna, but it's no longer true. I have reason to believe that you and I are being toyed with. The darkspawn attacked your camp and made it look as though humans had done it. We found a witness who was able to tell us, before he died, what he had seen." She reached into her breastplate. "And I found this on one of the darkspawn."
Velanna fell silent, the haughtiness draining from her as she took the trinket and stared at it. "This is Seranni's, our mother gave it to her. She would part with this no more easily than her own life."
Kallian watched as the mage processed what she'd been told, casting her eyes on the graves, weapons, the Wardens and, finally, back on Kallian. "I wondered why someone would just discard the weapons. You're saying the darkspawn planted them? That they killed my people and took my sister?"
"Yes."
"Why would they do this?" Velanna hissed.
Kallian shrugged, trying to mask her true fear that Velanna's sister had been captured to serve as a broodmother. "I don't know, but I intend to find out. Let us help you."
"You…you would help me find Seranni? Why?"
"No one deserves to suffer at the hands of darkspawn, Velanna."
"Great, another twitchy, magic sort. Just what we need," Oghren grumbled as he took a swig from his flask.
"Are we really going to…" Anders began. Catching Kallian's expression, he pursed his lips and nodded.
"Do you know where the darkspawn dwell?" Velanna asked, clearly making an effort to ignore the others.
"Underground, in tunnels, usually."
"There is an abandoned mine nearby," Velanna pointed back down the hill to the north.
Kallian nodded. "That's what I was thinking. Shall we?"
After a moment's hesitation, Velanna nodded curtly.
"Right. These are the Ferelden Grey Wardens. Mhairi, Nathaniel, my second, our healer, Anders, and Oghren."
The others each nodded in turn, and there was a moment of awkward silence before Kallian herded the group toward the mine entrance.
"All right, let me…" Kallian was pulling her lock picks out of her braided hair when she looked up, stopping short. The door to the mine was slightly ajar.
"Wait a minute. That was closed when we first passed by. Right?"
Kallian felt a sense of apprehension. The other Wardens were looking at each other and nodding slowly. Indecision filled her as she recalled Olaf's words. The dark ones are curious about you, too. This was a trap; she knew it instinctively, but she couldn't see any way around actually going into the mine. They were Wardens, they had to investigate, root out the darkspawn, eradicate them. She peered into the woods around them, but couldn't see anything but the trees. There were definitely darkspawn ahead of and below their current position, however, and that was what they were here for. She took a deep breath and steeled herself against her own conflicting emotions.
"Okay, we're going in…"
Velanna pushed past the others. "Well then let's go," she snapped sharply, pushing the door wide open to reveal a large cavernous entrance leading to a wooden staircase that wound down into the mine below them.
"Slow down, Velanna," Kallian whispered as she and the Wardens followed her. "We need to proceed cautiously."
They gathered at the top of the stairs and peered down. The next level wasn't too far below them and the area was reasonably well lit with torches along the walls.
"Um…those aren't enchanted lanterns, are they?" Kallian asked. Please say yes.
Anders shook his head. "Nuh uh." He was pale and looked to be sweating.
"Are you okay?" She reached out to put a hand on his arm, only to find him shaking slightly. Oh shit, she thought. I do not like this at all.
He gulped and nodded. "Not really. Don't like small spaces much, is all."
Why didn't I see this before? Kallian squeezed his arm and looked around at the others.
"Okay, so we're going to go in, look around, see what we can find, deal with it and get out. Keep an eye on each other and be wary."
Those very words would come back to haunt her mere moments later as she descended the stairs and walked across the stone floor toward a mining tunnel. The floor, which was covered with such a thick layer of dust that it appeared to be dirt, was actually paved with stones. Kallian realized this just a moment too late, as she reached the center of the cavern they crossed, and an intricate pattern of circles and squares beneath her began to glow an eerie green. That feeling of being watched washed over her again and with a start she felt the presence of a powerful darkspawn.
Her attention was drawn back up to the platform overhead and she thought her heart had stopped beating. Time seemed to come to a halt. The oddly shaped head; the human, almost handsome, face; woven leather pauldrons; breastplate that looked like a rib cage; long arms and fingers…It was all as she had seen it in her nightmares and it was real and staring down at her. Standing next to him was a tainted dwarven woman…wearing a Warden's armor, the griffon crest shining brightly in the torchlight. Terror gripped Kallian and she felt frozen, unable to speak or move. What have I done?
"Shhh…" the beast whispered as he waved a hand in the air.
Green mist swirled up around them and the world seemed to tip to one side. Kallian's vision blurred and as quickly as panic threatened to overtake her, the feeling slipped away, replaced by an overwhelming desire to rest, and everything went black.
A/N: Thanks to Bioware for use of some dialogue and their universe. Gratitude as always to my beta reader Mille Libri (happy vacay!), a shout out to Zevgirl and Zute for their support and friendship, and a special thank you to you, the readers, for reading, adding me to your alerts lists, and for reviewing/commenting. It really is great fun, and encouraging, hearing from you. Please feel free to comment; it's what keeps me going and makes this so much fun. Cheers!