AN: So here we are, part three. Sticking with Neria for a wee while before I get my surprise clogs all fitted. Thank you for your guesses and reviews! All shall be revealed in good time! Mwhahaha!

Part III: The Warden

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

at last.

(Margaret Atwood, Siren Song)

For weeks the song had split in two. The ever present voice; the hum of the tainted skulking in the old roads, the sibilant siren of a her own dirge. Then, one night as she tried to sleep, this other melody branched out from the choir. And this second song, this solo symphony, unnerved her more than the Calling ever could.

Because it was coming closer.

Neria became sick of waiting. And so she made her excuses and rode out to meet whatever came. Because she knew that it was coming for her. And it would not balk at high stone walls or splattering them with innocent blood. It would not stop until it found her. Or she found it.

She took pains to shrug off the scouts sent to follow her. They were cautious to keep their distance but Neria was used to being followed. She led them down false trails where her footsteps would disappear into the snow settled wilderness.

She marched through the night, not daring to sleep, knowing that the tainted thing would need no such sustenance. And when the red fingers of dawn appeared over the plains of the Hinterlands the song swelled to such a racket that her mind span with the noise. Whatever it was remained in one place since she'd started her journey towards it. Her own tainted song, no doubt, echoing in its ears.

The siren led her hunched form into the foothills. The jagged line of the Frostbacks loomed like the spires of the Black City, ever present at her side like an old friend, as she picked her way across boulders and rock falls. When she came across the mouth of a cave she stopped, feet itching to bolt, skin already crawling with the corruption that tainted the very air.

She had arrived.

It would not venture out in the blinding pale sun, however cold its distant rays. She could wait, eat, maybe snatch a second of sleep, but her stomach was tied in knots with the song and the smell and her mind overflowed with memories of the Deep Roads. Waiting would do nothing but give her time to ruminate. So with a heavy sigh she summoned a flame and plunged into the smoking blackness.

"You have come."

A mouth that should never have spoke formed gravelly, guttural, words. She flicked her wrist and the flames split off from her hand, lighting the cavern in their flickering orbs. It looked like the others had. A blackened lipless mouth pulled back over teeth sharp as steel. Where a man would have a nose two holes sucked in air with a death rattle. Its eyes were lidless like a lizards, blank and unfeeling. It shied away from her magic as she forced the floating fires to burn brighter.

"What do you want, darkspawn?" she bit down on the disgust. After years of bathing in the tainted blood of these creatures she still found her throat constricting at their corruption.

"I am The Shepherd," he lisped and spat. "I have come to guide you."

She grunted, worked her tongue around her dry mouth."Where is your master?" she asked. "I would have words with him."

"It is known," he muttered. "We have sensed you probing, groping uselessly for answers. I am your summons."

She said nothing. There was no need to affirm anything for this disciple. He would know what his master allowed him and nothing more. She stared at the beast, fascinated by the gruesome sight of his stretched skin, glinting like scales in the harsh light. His creation, his existence, quaked at her core. Separated from the hive mind by blood, the blood of her brothers; as she had joined it, with the blood of his kin. A bitter irony to swallow.

"We shall journey by night," he grunted. "I shall watch whilst you rest."

She shook her head. "I cannot rest in your company." It was not simply that she didn't trust the thing but its song was a restless whine making her blood into a war drum, urging her to kill. She dared not shut her eyes in such a state.

"I shall retreat and come again at nightfall."