The world had fallen away and all there was could be summed up with noise and fear and hate. 'Zevran!' He fought with her, her screams pierced the mist that had crept into his mind and he struggled to focus. She was trying to claw her way back to the pit.

'We have to go!' He shouted over the noise of screaming, his head panned around to find a safe spot, across the lava pools he could see rocks shattering the walls and he heard the screaming of the warriors. 'We have to go, he's gone now!'

'We can't…' He interrupted him.

'He's gone!' He tried pulling her to her feet, seeing the dwarves around them, trying to fight their way from the crumbling floors. She sagged against him and he looked down as her leg gave out, he cursed as he looked up, there were darkspawn between him and the exit, but not so many and they would not bring him down, not when he had to save her. He knelt and pulled her onto his back. 'Hold on.' He shouted to her as her arms tightened reflexively around his neck. He dropped his sword, keeping only his shield, there was no time to stand and fight. 'Run for it!' He commanded the dwarves, rising powerfully to slam a shield into a Hurlock's mid section, flinging him to one side and leaving the way clear.

He roared in anger as he made his stampede towards the exit hall. His long legs easily out striding the dwarves and he danced between the cracks appearing in the floor. He could feel her slipping, her arms applying more pressure to his throat so he struggled for breath. He reached behind him with his free hand and yanked her leg upwards to relieve the pressure. She screamed in agony and he felt her arms loosen a little more. 'Stay conscious!' He bellowed back at her and she struggled for a second before jamming her hands between the sections of his breastplate. He heard her whimper of pain but he knew that if she passed out now they might not make it out together.

Three darkspawn. Five. Eight. Each one charged at with rage, forcing them out of his way to be finished off by a passing dwarven axes. As he rounded the corner towards the bridge he could see the back lines of Harrowmont's army as a pit opened behind them and more Genlocks got into their backs, blood spattering across the floor in thick wet splats. A horn sounded from somewhere as he fled into the ancestors hall. 'The doors, get the doors.' Her voice was sharp as she shouted, a dwarf stabbed a knife into a genlock and kicked it away so it's blood trail made a slick over the commons floor.

'The doors!' He shouted, staring down the corridor towards the proving grounds, the doors there flexed and shattered. Clawed purple hand twisted the metal and yanked them off their hinges. The ogre looked around as it came onto the central bridge, spying them in the distance and began to run at the full tilt, bloody savagery in it's roar. 'Shut the doors!' He shouted again, moving to help the dwarves push them shut, they slid the barricade in place and a few seconds later the doors buckled as the ogre hit the thick metal.

'We've got to get through the last doors.' Sereda said tiredly into his ear. 'I can seal the stone doors from the outside.'

'Dwarves made it so they could be sealed in?' Alistair asked, but didn't question her as the small group of stragglers followed him to the exit. There were still many dwarves waiting outside, archers at the ready and he stopped. 'We're sealing the doors.' He told them.

'What about the dwarves inside?'

'Not a chance.' A dwarf next to him said. 'They were surrounded.' Then he began pushing the heavy stone closed. There was a shocked silence before the other dwarves began to help.

'Help me Alistair.' She said, unstitching herself from his armour and he saw the bruises that were beginning to redden her hands. 'I need Lyrium.' He blinked at her.

He turned. 'We need lyrium, someone must have bought some to sell on, I will pay you for it once we get to warden's keep.' He said to the dwarves and after a moment one came forward to hand his over. 'Why lyrium?' He asked her after a moment, helping her towards the door.

'So only a dwarf can seal these doors.' She said and he looked down, her legs wasn't dislocated nor broken but she couldn't put pressure on it. 'It's something our people did long ago, only the royal house knows how.' She took a knife from her boot and sliced open her hand, squeezing it so it was covered in her blood, then she poured the lyrium over her hand. In a human or an elf, lyrium poisoning would be almost instant, but she had the dwarven tenacity and resistance. Still he was glad it was processed lyrium, unprocessed lyrium turned even dwarves funny in the head. She reached up and began to paint the mixture into some grooves on the door. It began to glow in a strange purple light, she stood back and then there was a bright flash and the doors, carved from the stone long ago, were now returned to a part of the rock face. The mountain was sealed. 'It will not hold them forever.' She said, taking a deep breath as she sat wordlessly on the steps, looking at her people, who stared at her, expecting more.

'Now we leave for Warden's keep.' He said to them, if she couldn't lead them right now then he would have to. 'Once there we can make our strategy with the Wardens on how to get Orzammar back.' Wordlessly he passed his shield to a dwarf and knelt in front of Sereda. 'Let's see what we can do with your leg at the first rest stop.' He said, lifting her and clasping his hands behind her back so she would be in as little pain as possible. 'Let's go.

*

They had bandaged her leg tightly, not knowing what was wrong with it exactly and Alistair hoped there was someone with magical healing waiting for them at the keep. At the first rest stop he had stripped her of all her armor so he only had to carry her in her padded underclothes. He'd also taken a look at the bruising that the ogre had done to her back and legs, it was a wonder she'd not been shredded, if her armor had been lighter it was a possibility.

She was alert enough to take the healing poultices he had without choking too badly but she fell asleep as they walked, her head on his shoulder, cradled in place by her arms around his neck. He was beginning to feel that he was too out of shape for this, the road was muddy, churned up by a thousand dwarves running for their lives and it was difficult to walk. Still there were none of those random encounters you generally got whilst travelling, there were far too many in his group to find trouble.

Still finding a campsite was difficult when you have around seventy people to consider. They eventually found an open grassland surrounded by a small woodland where they could get enough material for some fires.

The mood in the camp was subdued as they sat around the fires, he could hear someone weeping quietly not so far away from him. He set up some watch rotations, what he wouldn't give for Sten or Shale around, hell, even Oghren knew the score at times like these. All he wanted was just tonight where these people could be free of the darkspawn, they would have to deal with enough in their dreams.

He walked over to the small canvas sheet that had been pegged taut, they didn't have much, but the dusters had donated them some bedding for the time being. The thing he had to remember was that these people were not afraid of hard work, that they just needed a helping hand. It brought to mind that he should really do more for the elves. He sat down on the blankets and stroked her long dark hair from her forehead. Her eyes opened immediately, she had never slept in camp when there was something on her mind. 'How are you doing?' He asked softly.

She looked up at him with doe like brown eyes and then shook her head, burying her face into the blankets for a second. 'It's all my fault.' She said listlessly. 'I made the pact with Morrigan, I should have died at Fort Drakon.' Alistair closed his eyes. 'Then all this would have been avoided.'

'Until the next time.' He said and he could feel her still. 'You're a Grey Warden. This is a cycle, you know that. The cycle simply rolled around faster this time.' He murmured.

She was very quiet. 'Do you remember my joining.' She asked gently and looked up at him. How could he forget, he'd only been at two and hers had been the worst. 'Do you remember Daveth?' She asked and he hesitated before reaching around her neck to the pendant that carried the blood from her joining.

'I remember.' He said gently and looked into her eyes.

She nodded. 'He told Jory that he would willingly give more than his life to end the Blight. Do you remember?' She asked.

'I also remember that you agreed with him.'

'Well of course I did.' She sighed. 'Because at that point what did I have to live for? I was an exile, one that should have been lost to the deep roads. There was nothing else left to lose.' She sat up gingerly and he put his arm around her, pulling her against him to try and soothe her. 'Even after the battle, even with Flemeth, I wouldn't say I had a death wish, but I had no reason to…' She swallowed. 'But that changed. It was slow at first but as they started to join our group I found a reason to keep on going in each one of them. A little spark of something.'

'That's good. I'm glad they made such an impact.' He said seriously.

'I think the first time I realised that I was trying to save the world for all of you was when Sten told me he liked cookies…' She smiled at the memory to herself. 'I guess that's not important. Yet, after it ended I lost them all anyway.' She shook her head. 'I'm beginning to wonder that I didn't allow all this to happen to get them all back again. Because with the baby… I'm smarter than that.' The mask that dampened her emotions cracked and her face crumpled. 'It's my fault he's dead.'

Wordlessly he drew her to him, his voice soft and gentle, rocking her as she wept. She had been the best of them all and now she had said it he could see how she came alive when the others had been around. When they had started out he had watched her in the night, partly because she was pretty but mostly because she stared at the stars with such sadness. As the camp had become busier her mood had lightened and he had fallen in love with her. She had saved the world for them and she would have to save it again.