Chapter Nine: No More Grey Wardens

Mahahlia had never seen anything like the ogre before in her life and she hoped in vain that she would never see another of its ilk again. The creature was huge and all the more hideous for the fact that it vaguely resembled a man in proportion and form. Grey skin and a distended jaw filled Mahahlia's senses as she rocked back on her heels and tried to brace herself against the bone shaking tremors caused by the creature's foul roar.

Alistair surprised her by releasing a roar of his own and charging the creature without a moments pause. He moved with shocking speed for a man in so much metal plate, his shield borne before him. Mahahlia hesitated instantly shuffling to the far wall of the third floor of the tower and circling the fight. Sweat and drying blood coated her palms and weakened her grip on her dar'misu. The ogre was magnificent and obscene and Mahahlia tasted the crisp, metallic coldness of true fear at the back of her throat.

The ogre bellowed once again, reached down with one sapling thick arm and plucked the anonymous tower guard up in its meaty fist. Alistair shouted wordlessly and lunged forward, thrusting his sword into the ogre's muscled thigh. The creature screamed, a spell bolt of eldritch light tore through the air towards it sent by the circle mage, and then…..then the monster squeezed closed his fist.

Mahahlia flinched as the wet crack of hundreds of shem bones shattering at once struck her ears like a physical blow. The shemlen guard's blood seeped in a crimson rush over the ogre's thick fist. Mahahlia saw his dead eyes bulge.

Alistair lunged forward again, slamming his shield into the creature's leg, bashing, pummelling, chipping away at bleeding flesh. His sword arced in the air cleaving skin and muscle and showering black blood across his face, his hair, and his armour. The ogre howled buffeted by spells and Alistair's constant onslaught. Nevertheless the ogre tossed aside the broken shemlen guard easily, carelessly, so that that shattered leaking body hit the wall behind the ogre's back with a wet slap, staining the stone work red as it fell to the floor.

'Die already!'

Alistair struck with his sword, the blade sinking into ruined thigh muscle and gore inches deep – and there it lodged. He tried to pull the weapon free and in that moment made himself a target. The ogre swept down a hand to grab at him.

Mahahlia screamed wordless and savage; she was in motion before she knew it, flying forward, leaping for all she was worth, both blades extended before her. She slammed her dar'misu into the ogre's lower back as deep and as far as she could. The monster howled, recoiling in response to the unexpected backstab, and Alistair was finally able to tear his sword free of the creature's leg and duck for cover.

Bellowing loud enough to bring down the tower roof the creature twisted wildly, horrid hands trying to tear Mahahlia from its back, where she dangled off her feet clinging on to her blades for dear life.

'Let go - Mahahlia get clear!'

Deaf to everything except the roaring of her own blood in her ears Mahahlia did not hear Alistair's shouts. Instead all she knew was the wrenching sensation in her arms and shoulders as the ogre thrashed and twisted; all she was aware of was the foul reek of its scabrous flesh and the tang of blood on her tongue. Scrabbling for purchase she started climbing the creature's back, dragging her blades in and out of the monster's skin as she climbed. The screaming she heard could have been from the ogre or issued from her own throat. Again and again she stabbed her blades in; distantly she felt the crack as her right wrist snapped – but even then she did not stop. Blood covered her eyes, blocked her nose, flew from the ends of her hair. She felt herself fall, felt the ogre fall, and never once stopped her onslaught.

When it was over and the ogre's corpse had twitched its last, Alistair dragged her from the red ruin of its back. Mahahlia did not fight him as she stood trembling in the aftermath, clutching her broken wrist to her chest. She made no mention of the thick wash of blood painting her skin or the streaks of tears cutting through that mask of crimson – and neither did Alistair. Sometimes small favours can be found in the strangest of places.

'Let's get that beacon lit.' Alistair said walking over to the beacon and setting it alight. The flames danced eagerly skyward. Mahahlia gulped in air, sinking silently to the bloody floor. She tried not to look at the spot where the mangled tower guard oozed all over the floor.

At least it was over now, she thought at the exact moment her mind lit up on fire and the top floor of the tower was suddenly filled with Darkspawn. She was too surprised to react as the first of many arrows pierced her body.

******

Mahahlia was dreaming again – and this time she knew it. She walked in the same huge underground cavern she had found the Tamlen-thing in. The rivers of flame still rolled on far below her and dismembered bodies still littered the path. This time however everything was visible through a haze of distortion; edges and contours obscured by a wavering miasma. She heard weirdly modulated voices whispering from dark corners and disembodied shouts which bounced off the heavy stone walls.

Mahahlia was not sure where she was going but despite this her feet kept moving forward.

They are all dead; all the king's men and the king with them. Betrayed, deceived, abandoned; they died…..just as all men do.

Mahahlia did not know where the voice came from, it seemed almost as if she thought it rather than heard it; a woman's voice, sweet and strong; the voice of a queen……or a goddess.

'Who are you?' She walked on a quilt of picked clean bones. There were older bones turned into a mountain of dust under the fresher litter of ivory. The slippery, powdery pile made walking treacherous. The bones cracked under foot, the sound as sharp as crossed blades. Above her head darkness closed in.

The Grey Wardens fell too; the Order is no more. They died at the hands of the horde; all dead now; all gone.

'Am I dead?' She wasn't afraid and that seemed wrong. Mahahlia vaguely remembered a place beyond this charnel pit; she remembered a tower and a beacon – she remembered a sudden ambush and searing points of pain riddling her body as she hit the cold tower floor.

No. The voice almost purred. Your fleshly form yet breathes little mortal; you live.

'My fleshly form; am I not in my body now?' Mahahlia looked down at her own hands, stained almost black with dried blood and gore. She looked down at her Dalish boots equally caked in filth and up the length of her body. It looked as though she had bathed fully clothed under a waterfall of blood. 'Where am I?'

This is the eye of the storm; the place that is and is not. This is where we shall meet and where we shall never meet. This is the head of the horde.

A massive dark shadow stretched across the land from above, casting Mahahlia in cruel darkness. The shadow's form was impossible to make sense of as it bent across the jagged face of the cliffs and seeped over the path of bones. The scent of old meat and mouldy bones filled her senses and a gusting breath of hot air scalded her back as Mahahlia walked determinedly on without once daring to lift her head. A strange sound like snapping leather and grinding muscle moving together far above her head, made her heart beat harder, faster. Mahahlia felt the heat of her fear rise from her skin in a nearly visible wave. She dared not look above her to the fantastical creature who prowled beside her.

Let me look at you, little one. Let us both see the other as we truly are.

The roaming shadows closed in around Mahahlia and for a moment it seemed that she saw claw and membranous skin stretched between thin, yet massive, bones. Mahahlia thought of bats and other winged creatures of the forest but she knew, deep down, that this thing above and beside and all around her, was no bat. Choking back a stifled sob, heart stuttering in her chest, Mahahlia wondered if it was possible to die of fright in a dream. She did not want to look up; she did not want to see what was there. Yet she did not control this dream and she did not control this dream body. Slowly, so terribly, terribly slowly, Mahahlia lifted her head and looked up.

Eyes of sickly yellow flame; a being of massive strength and leashed majesty rose above her. Wings of shadow and fog scraped the cavern ceiling and teeth long as Mahahlia's forearm serrated an almost delicate tapered jaw. Hundreds of raw and bleeding sores oozed corruption as they opened like geysers across the dragon's body. Pain and fury and madness radiated from the fallen goddess.

Hello little one. The archdemon smiled at her.

For the second time in recent history Mahahlia fell out of her dreams screaming in terror.