Well, this is a quicker turnout than usual; let's hope real life keeps playing ball for the time being!

As always, thank you to everyone who reads, reviews and subscribes: special thanks to Theodur, MysticGohan88, KnightofHolyLight, Fictionshadow and spectre4hire-it's always good to know people want to read this, since it works wonders on writer's block!

Glad to see everyone's happy with my decision to let Arabella Amell live for the moment (I've got something else in mind for her) and that you enjoyed the Urthemiel POV. I'd just like to say that it was my intention to make him a hate-filled sociopath prone to lengthy monologues since I have a soft spot for the old "Grr, Argh, must destroy mankind" sort of villains (don't get me wrong, I love and endeavour to make the Machiavellian schemers of Dragon Age, i.e., Loghain, Howe, Anora, as real as possible, but there is something enjoyable and sometimes refreshing about an enemy whose sole goal is just rampant destruction). Plus, I imagine all the rage and anger the Archdemon possesses is quite rational as I imagine them to be side effects of the taint (since I don't imagine millennia of incarceration, accompanied by large doses of the taint work wonders for your state of mind) and since, according to the Codex, Urthemiel is a 'maddened husk of his former self, filled with nothing but a desire to destroy all life'. Just wanted to explain my reasons for portraying the Old God as enjoying a good rant and having clear genocidal tendencies.

As always, I hope I've done justice to this part of the tale and I hope you enjoy it...as much as one can enjoy the thought of the blood and guts and worse that's in this one. I hope I've managed to capture the truly repulsive aspects of the Dead Trenches and what makes its lair there...

'Atrast nal tunsha-May you always find your way in the dark'.

And above all else, enjoy!

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There in the depths of the earth they dwelled,
Spreading their taint as a plague, growing in number
Until they were a multitude.

Canticle of Threnodies, 8:27

The smell of death and decay washed over them, the scent of rot all but overpowering the deeper they went. The fetid odour seemed to seep out of the very stone, turning all their stomachs; even the seemingly indomitable Oghren was beginning to look a little green. Arabella seemed to be in constant discomfort, one with which Arthur empathised: he'd at least had a few weeks to get used to the discomfort of being privy to the darkspawn hive mind, but Arabella was being thrown in at the deep end without preparation. Arthur felt deeply regretful-this was no way like how he'd imagined Arabella would be inducted into the Order- but there was nothing to do for the moment except help her grin and bear it, and begin to explain the same things that had been somewhat explained to him after his Joining...though nowhere near enough.

In spite of the thousands of darkspawn ascending to the surface with the archdemon, many still lurked in the tunnels, attacking in small numbers-predominantly genlocks fighting tooth and nail in the ever-narrowing corridors , hurlocks lying in wait where the tunnels became wide enough for them to use their weapons effectively, shrieks that could spring out of ambush from nowhere, their accursed armour and chameleon-like letting them shift in and out of the shadows with ease, their ear-splitting screams echoing long after their source had fled or been cut down. They weren't numerous enough to seriously threaten the group, and the beasts always retreated when the companions' resistance proved too stiff, but their ferocity was undimmed; they weren't shy of attacking, but they kept falling back rather than be drawn into protracted battle...almost as if they were trying to get their opponents to give chase.

In addition, they continued to exhibit the strange behaviour they'd shown back in Ortan Thaig. What made it more nerve-wracking, for Arthur at least, was that since they still showed no interest in Wynne and Arabella was now 'spoiled meat', the focus of their attacks was Leliana; the darkspawn were still desperately trying to split her off from the main group and- 'What? Take her captive? And if so, for what purpose? Torture? Rape?'. No answer came to Arthur, only an urge to ensure that they didn't find out and as such, he'd become quite fierce in his defence of the bard, making sure to place himself in front of Leliana, intercepting and cutting down any darkspawn that went for her and constantly keeping one eye on her to make sure she hadn't broken off or been cut off from the rest of them. 'I've nearly lost one friend to the darkspawn; I won't let them take another instead!' the Warden swore to himself.

But the wandering packs of darkspawn soldiers prowling the tunnels were not the only sign that the creatures had firmly laid claim to the Dead Trenches. The floors, the ceiling, the very walls of the labyrinthine passages were covered in thick fleshy red growths of the type seen wherever the darkspawn made their presence known, tendrils of the stuff inexorably spreading out from wherever their source lay, pulsing and throbbing as if to the beating of some monstrous heart, dripping foul-smelling ooze that was overflowing with the taint; the companions made sure to give the spreading puddles of the slime a wide berth, until Arabella set the damn substance alight, causing the growths to retreat...for the moment.

"These creatures and their corruption spread like disease" Wynne muttered darkly as they watched the fleshy coating retreat away from the light and warmth. "The darkspawn are truly a cancer upon the world, they poison and defile everything they touch...can nowhere be made sacred from their infection?"

"It can, the same way one deals with any sort of corruption...we purge it with fire and sword" Arthur replied immediately as he cleaned the darkspawn blood off Duncan's sword. 'This is my life, my duty now; to cut away the tumours festering away at the roots of our world. And after what I've seen of these monsters, along with the other form of corruption I will have to eradicate from the face of Ferelden when we return to the surface, I will gladly expunge such foulness from Thedas. After all, 'Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter'.

Worst were the strange fleshy sacs that seemed to have been placed at random points along the length of the tunnels, half buried in mounds of putrid, rotting flesh, leaking more of the same stinking, poisonous ooze and pulsating periodically to the same rhythm as the growths coating the surrounding walls. After passing two such piles, Arthur moved in to investigate, holding his breath against the smell. The fluid-filled membrane was translucent, and in the light of the torches, Arthur could see a dark shape within moving sluggishly. He reluctantly moved closer, inadvertently placing a hand to the pod's surface; it was sticky, gelatinous, similar to the frogspawn he remembered handling as a boy during one of Aldous's many lessons, and Arthur began to wonder...based on the similarities, could these fleshy sacs be what he was beginning to suspect they were?

The shape inside the membrane was smaller than the dwarf-like proportions it would have full grown; Oren would have been a giant compared to the misshapen thing writhing in its membranous cocoon, but though much smaller in proportion, the skull-like face, bat ears and mouth full of needle fangs were unmistakeable; the thing growing and writhing within the sac and the others beside it were clearly genlocks. And as he took that in, other things about the fleshy pods and the mounds of rotting meat began to make sense; the purpose of the dead flesh piled up around was two-fold, to both incubate the growing darkspawn within their membranous cocoons owing to the heat the process of decomposition would generate, and then, when the infant genlocks hatched, provide them with a ready and waiting supply of food.

These were not pile of random detritus deposited by the darkspawn. These were nests.

"Burn them" Arthur commanded, pressing the torch to the membrane's surface, watching with satisfaction as the oily secretions oozing from it caught light with ease, watching as Arabella and Wynne conjured bursts of flame from their hands to set the remaining fleshy nests ablaze, adding the pungent aroma of cooking meat to the already 'fragrant' scents pervading through the caverns. Further in to the tunnels, the party discovered how the nests were being constructed; two hurlocks each carrying a single pod between them from a tunnel that led in deeper, setting it down in an already dug depression in the earth. Once enough pods had been gathered together, a number of waiting genlocks piled up the waiting flesh that would serve as incubation and food around the gestating darkspawn. The sight hadn't stopped them from slaughtering the creatures, ambushing them as they worked too quickly for the darkspawn to draw weapons to defend either themselves or their charges, but such sights only raised more questions to an already lengthy list, one most prominent above all others:

If these fleshy sacs were eggs, what had laid them?

###############

They'd destroyed about six of the foul nests in the tunnels before they heard the voice in the distance.

"First day, they come...and catch everyone. Second day, they beat us...and eat some for meat. Third day, the men are all gnawed on again"

"What is it talking about?" Wynne muttered under her breath as they proceeded into the tunnel they'd heard the voice emanate from. "They say the darkspawn take prisoners so they can devour them later...is that what they've done? Did Branka and her house fall prey to their hunger?". But the voice continued to speak before Arthur could answer, and its next statement cast doubts on Wynne's pronouncement.

"Fourth day we wait...and fear for our fate. Fifth day they return, and it's another girl's turn. Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams. Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth...they spew. Eighth day, we hated as she is violated"

Arthur stopped as he heard Leliana cry out, a hand clapping to her mouth as she caught the implication of the dwarf's statement, mute horror written across her face. Arthur was beside her in an instant, one hand on her shoulder, the other on her chin, turning her face to look at him, his eyes as he muttered words of comfort and reassurance, his voice low and urgent, enough to get the bard moving again. No doubt, she'd known what it was to be violated in the Orlesian dungeon, but the dwarf's jumbled words seemed to suggest something far beyond rape. While he knew and empathised with his lover's pain, not to mention feared the implications of what the unknown individual was saying, there was no time at the present to linger. 'I swear I'll do everything I can to comfort you, to heal the pain of past wounds, my love, but not here, not now, not when we run the risk of finding out what our foes want firsthand'

"Ninth day, she grins...and devours her kin"

Cannibalism, while distasteful, was a viable means of survival if worse came to worst, but what the voice seemed to imply sounded much worse...as if the choice had been forced upon them. But why? What purpose could the darkspawn have for forcing cannibalism upon their captives?

"Now she does feast...as she's become the beast"

It wasn't long before they came upon the source of the voice intoning the insane doggerel.

"What is this? A human? Bland and unlikely." A dwarven woman sat hunched over in the room's centre, curled into herself much as Ruck had been, periodically stuffing great chunks of raw meat from the great mounds of flesh piled up around her into her mouth carelessly, uncaring of the mess of clotted blood and meat gobbets around her mouth that she made no effort to clean away. The taint was much further advanced in her; dark splotches of blackness dotted her face and under her eyes, giving the pallid, near-scaly skin a mottled look. Pale, cracked lips encrusted with sores and other diseased cuts periodically muttered the deranged poem they'd heard echoing through the tunnels and her eyes... the woman's eyes were just like Ruck's, glassy and opaque, like the dead-white eyes of a darkspawn.

"I know this drooling moss-licker..." Oghren's voice was husky as he peered at the woman. "It's Hespith; she was captain of Branka's household guard."

"Feeding time brings only kin and clan. I am cruel to myself. You are a dream of strangers' faces and open doors..." The woman muttered to herself more than anyone, pushing dirty hair that was once blonde but now looked more of a dirty white, falling out in clumps, leaving large bald patches all over her scalp, out of her face, revealing hollowed cheeks smeared with black ichor. Behind him, Arthur vaguely heard Arabella excuse herself and flee back into the tunnel from which they'd come, the sound of her retching carrying to them, not that Arthur blamed her: no doubt, the young mage was wondering if this was how she might have ended up...the same thought that was occurring to Arthur. Would he and Alistair one day look like this deformed, diseased creature when their time came and the taint ran its course, calling them to their final rest?

"I-is this darkspawn corruption? I've never seen anything like it before" Wynne's voice conveyed both fear and disgust at the unknown before her. 'Nor have I' Arthur thought; this woman was unlike any ghoul he'd seen before because from what he could feel, the taint within her didn't seem to simply be poisoning her; instead, it seemed to be...mutating, changing the flesh it infected, increasing growth and health, altering the body to better suit certain needs. Edward took one sniff of Hespith and then retreated with a whimper behind his master's legs, growling at the tainted woman plaintively, tail firmly between his legs.

"Corruption!" the dwarf hissed, her head pricking up at the voice, her mouth contorted into a snaggle-toothed grimace. "The men did that! Their wounds festered and their minds fled... They are like dogs... marched again, the first to die." The ghoulish woman looked up then, her eyes wide and staring in mortification at some sight only she could see. "Not us, not me. Not Laryn. We are not cut. We are fed. Friends and flesh and blood and bile and… and..."

Hespith collapsed in a heap, uncaring that she was wallowing in filth, her fingers running through the tainted mush coating the floor, the nails long and claw-like, blackened with filth, raking furrows across her mottled skin as she clutched herself, curling into a foetal ball. "All I could do was wish Laryn went first. I wished it upon her so that I would be spared...but I had to watch," the dwarf continued to moan, her voice little more than a ragged whisper. "I had to see the change. How do you endure that? How did Branka endure?"

"What change? What did you endure? What... what are they doing?" Arthur asked, immediately regretting the question, certain he wasn't going to like the answer...

"What they are allowed to do. What they think they must. And Branka..." The woman licked her hands, hungrily licking the blackened blood off them and Leliana was gone, joining Arabella to vomit in disgust at the horrific sight of how low this dwarf had fallen in its madness.

Oghren stepped forward then, pressing his way past Arthur, seized Hespith roughly by the front of the tattered scraps of clothing that clung to her emaciated frame and roughly shook her. "Where is she, Hespith, you crazy old bronto? Where's Branka?"

It was the wrong thing to say: with an angry snarl, Hespith lashed out like a cat. Oghren staggered back, more from shock than anything else, and landed on his arse in the muck. Healing energy leapt from Wynne's fingers, cleansing the scratch marks of any possible infection, but Oghren didn't notice, staring up in mute shock at the fury blazing in Hespith's dead, mad eyes.

"DO NOT TALK OF BRANKA! What she did...Ancestors preserve us, I was her captain and...I did not stop her. Her lover... and I could not turn her. Forgive her... but no, she cannot be forgiven. Not for what she did. Not for what she has become."

"What has she done? Tell us and we can help you end it!" Wynne pleaded, her voice calm and even though her fear was apparent, trying to appeal to whatever rationality was left in the dwarf's mind, but Hespith's only reply was a deranged laugh, a chilling sound that made it quite clear there was nothing left of the woman beyond the insanity that had consumed her.

"End it? I am full of them, just a step away from Laryn! Ending it means accepting and that, t-that I won't do! I will not become what I have seen! Not Laryn! Not Branka!" Hespith wailed as she fled, scrambling like a monkey on all fours over the piles of raw meat and mutilated bodies, out through a stone doorway and into the corridors beyond.

"Hespith said lover," Oghren muttered darkly. "Branka's lover."

"I... she was... she was out of her mind, Oghren," Wynne said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "She was raving. That could have meant... anything."

"Nah, there's got to be more than that" Oghren growled. "Hespith! Hespith! Get back here now, you moss-licking old coot and start talking sense!" the dwarf bellowed as he hefted his maul and raced out of the room and through the door Hespith had fled out of.

"Oghren, wait!" Arthur yelled, racing after the fleeing form of the berserk dwarf, barely hearing the others bringing up the rear, his own mind trying to make sense of the rambling madness that had been just professed to him.

'What had Hespith meant by 'the change'? If the darkspawn are behind this, what have they done to this Laryn? And what part did Branka have to play in this?'

No answers came, only a parade of mad thoughts, each more worrying than the last.

####################

"She became obsessed... That is the word, but it is not strong enough...Blessed Stone, there was nothing left in her but the Anvil"

Despite Hespith's disappearance, they could still hear her. Her voice travelled through the walls, echoing back to them wherever they went. Arthur wouldn't have been surprised to find the ghoul was following them, taunting them with her singsong warnings. Oghren eyed their surroundings verily, his thunderous expression clearly stating he'd like nothing more than to drag Hespith from her hiding place and wring her neck.

They entered another open chamber, and saw two great doors barring their way forward. "I'm guessing the one on the left is the one we want" Arthur muttered, basing his deduction on the pair of ogres standing guard outside. The blue-skinned goliaths roared angrily at the sight of the intruders, one breaking into a charge, the other sinking its fists into the ground, heaving a large section of the floor for a throw; before it could pull back its arms for the throw however, Shale tossed a broken piece of masonry, catching the ogre in its chest, sending the beast staggering back and simultaneously dropping the boulder it had hefted over its head, the heavy stone weight dropping onto its skull with a loud crack that snapped off a good portion of the bone crown of horns. Though this ogre's skull was too thick for the boulder to crack it, it was too dazed to defend itself immediately when Shale tackled it to the floor, heavy granite fists pummelling the darkspawn's head and torso. Arthur and company made to assist, but another problem arose.

The second ogre sprinted straight for them, and the remaining companions scattered before it. Realising its first charge hadn't been effective, the ogre whirled round, advancing towards the closest targets; Leliana and Wynne. The bard was still disorientated and a little uneven from the sight of Hespith, and the mage was doing her best to conjure spells to slow the beast down, but she was still winded and dazed, having hit her head leaping out of the way. The ogre extended a clawed hand towards them-

"OI! Over here, you ugly blue ape!" Arthur yelled at the top of his voice, beating his sword against his shield to draw its attention. The tactic worked; the ogre spun round, away from its initial prey and towards the Warden, beating its fists angrily against its chest, baring its yellowed fangs as it let loose a hungry roar...that became a shriek as Edward, charging from behind, sank his fangs into the back of the behemoth's left leg, fangs ripping at the hamstrings and tendons. Wailing angrily, the ogre's charge became a shambling mess as it desperately tried to shake the war dog off it, but the mabari was too fast a target. More focused on getting rid of the source of its pain than any other potential threat, the ogre failed to notice that it had stumbled straight into the path of Oghren's hammer until the stone head slammed into the right kneecap with a loud crack, crushing the bone into shards.

With one leg crippled and the other mauled, the ogre's balance was lost: unbalanced, it toppled, right in front of Arthur, who wasted no time in raising his sword over his head and bringing it stabbing down into the back of the ogre's skull, the enchanted dragonbone easily cutting through the thick bones of the skull to bury the blade deep into the brain. Spinning round, they saw the battle had turned against Shale; the first ogre had managed to throw the golem off it, pin the stone warrior to the floor and pulled its fists back to rain down a flurry of stone-shattering punches. Before the first blow could fall, however, Wynne shot a orb of grey light that struck the beast in the centre of its chest, and the ogre's angry roars turned into screams as its body began to petrify, the rippling musculature and leathery blue skin turning hard and pale, spreading down the arms and legs, up the neck and head until the magic had reduced the ogre to nothing more than a lifeless block of sandstone, one that a couple of well-placed blows from Shale reduced into dust.

"They only attacked when they saw us. Before we came, they were protecting that door..."

"Then shall we find out what they were guarding?" Shale asked even as the golem drove its fist into the lock of the door, shattering it into metal shards and sending the doors slamming open.

"We tried to escape, but they found us. They took us all, turned us..."

Hespith's voice called out over them again, and Arthur growled angrily, heartily sick of the dwarf's gibbering lunacy and the unpleasant mental images it conjured up. "Oy, does she ever shut up?" Arabella muttered angrily, conjuring a magical wisp of light to illuminate the path ahead: the passage was jet black, no torches, no natural light, just the darkness and whatever had taken refuge within it.

"I never liked that sodding bitch," Oghren groused angrily. "She was an annoying cow even when she wasn't half-blind and crazy to boot-"

"The men, they kill... they're merciful. But the women, they want. They want to touch, to mold, to change until you are filled with them..."

Leliana was praying rapidly behind them, her voice barely a whisper compared to Hespith's diatribes. "The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next. For she who trusts in the Maker...The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword...

"They took Laryn. They made her eat the others, our friends, our family. She tore off her husband's face and drank his blood."

Now Leliana was praying faster than ever, clearly desperate to keep the almost-mocking voice at bay, to drown out the words. "Maker, though the darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure..."

And then Wynne's voice joined hers, the two women desperate to draw some comfort to themselves, to gain some hope that their faith hadn't abandoned them in this dark, fetid, evil place: "Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond, for there is no darkness in the Maker's Light and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost..."

More of the fleshy, glistening eggs littered the passage, the very stone of the walls and floor stained with the corruption oozing out of them, more numerous than those they'd seen before. And the smell...the stench coming out of the passage was a horrific combination of rotting meat, dried blood and other odours of decay, combined with the fetid stench of an open sewer in the middle of summer, creating an abhorrent melange of aromas that did nothing to ease the nausea they all felt.

Worst of all, he'd begun to feel it again; the familiar itching within the veins, as well as sensations gleaned from the minds of the horde...he could recognise the typical thoughts of darkspawn grunts lurking further in, but there was something else in the darkness, something greater, something worse...

"There's something ahead" he muttered in warning to the others. "Something angry...and ravenous"

"And while she ate, she grew. She swelled and turned gray and she smelled like them. They remade her in their image. Then she... made more of... them."

Even as Hespith's latest delusion made itself heard, another set of sounds emitted from the end of the tunnel. The first noise they heard wasn't easy to define, but the word that came to mind was wet. A sloshing, squelching noise of something moving through...not water, but something...thicker.

And then came the screech, part howl of agony, part laugh of utter lunacy, filled with fear and pain, hate and fury as thick and overwhelming as the stench. No darkspawn that they had encountered before, not even the archdemon had ever made such a sound, and the Wardens felt the visceral anguish of it that evoked pity and revulsion in equal measure. Arthur felt a sense of fear, of reluctance to go on that he'd never felt before; ' I don't want to go any further, I don't want to know what lies ahead, I don't want to know what's done this, what's driven them all to madness'

"Oh, sweet Maker. Tell me she's not... she's not..." Leliana covered her ears with her hands, her expression one of terror, desperately reciting every line of the Chant she could remember.

"What's down there?" Wynne demanded, the older woman's normally impassive countenance wary, almost as frightened as Leliana as she stared at the tunnel's exit "What is it?" Arthur had no answers for her, but another did...

"Broodmother..."

Then the tunnel opened up into a cavernous chamber, and they all saw the horror that lurked within.

The bloated, stinking behemoth at the far end of the chamber was taller, broader, and doubtless weighed several tonnes more than both of the ogres they'd just slain. The archdemon had been terrifying enough, but there had been a form of twisted beauty to Urthemiel, a sense of power and majesty about the creature that had been before the taint warped it into the monster it had become. There was nothing redeeming about the foul creature sat at the other side of the cavern whatsoever. A huge, ponderous belly, with twin rows of fleshy, sagging teats like those of a sow's rose and fell with every rasping breath it drew, though Arthur was amazed its weight hadn't already crushed its lungs. Its leathery and pale, almost albino skin, devoid of any form of light in its blood-soaked lair, was greasy, owing to the oily, foul-smelling secretions oozing from every pore. There were no legs visible, nor did he think there was any sort of limbs strong enough to support the beast's ponderous bulk, but from beneath the folds of fat at the body's base, multiple appendages protruded, squid-like tentacles emerging through the bloody sludge coating the chamber floor, reaching out to grasp at its next meal. At the very back of its swollen, insect-like abdomen, Arthur could see a bulging ovipositor, laying more of the fleshy, membranous eggs they'd seen littering the tunnels, the newborn darkspawn inside them already gestating, yet more soldiers for Urthemiel's horde.

Other tendrils slithered across the floor of the cavern, undulating sluggishly in the thick layer of sludge that was the source of the stomach-churning stench: the creature's bodily wastes, oozing from some unseen orifice and mixed with the rotting carcasses of whatever creatures had been dumped there for the beast to gorge itself upon, the unholy mixture of rotting flesh, blood, vomit, excrement and Maker knew what else, of which the creature's tentacles scooped up great gouts of the fleshy mire around it, lifting them up to the creature's gaping mouth, the only way it could feed itself, for while the body had swelled to monstrous proportions, but the arms were stunted and tiny in comparison; it could not hope to reach the floor of the cavern or fit into the largest of the tunnels exiting the cavern, could not move to hunt for prey, could not even reach its own mouth. It was trapped here by its size, wallowing in its own filth, able to do nothing but eat and reproduce, subsumed forever to the will and urges of the creatures that had mutated the individual it once was into the aberration it had become.

But the worst thing about it were its eyes; those small, piggy black orbs that had widened hungrily at the prospect of fresh meat. The creature let loose a ear-splitting scream, part cry of rage, part deranged laugh and, as its gaze bored into Arthur's, he had a terrible suspicion that somewhere, a small part of the woman this monstrosity had been was still in there, fully aware of what had been done to it and what it had become, driven to a point no sane individual should go. Little wonder those eyes were clearly brimming with madness; seeing such a creature in the flesh would be enough to destroy lesser minds, so who knew would actually being made to suffer the horrific, agonising attentions of the darkspawn would do to someone?

His mortification was such that Arthur only just managed to raise his shield in time to block the first tentacle that struck him full in his chest like a battering ram, sending him sprawling in the foul-smelling ooze. Arthur let out a yell as he felt the same tentacle coil like a python around his right shin, retracting towards its host body with incredible speed, the broodmother licking its lips hungrily at the prospect of fresh meat almost in reach...

And then the broodmother's hungry snuffling became a yowl of pain as an arrow struck it in the left eye; the creature fell back, its arms vainly trying to reach its face to pull the shaft out. Arthur chanced a look behind him, to see Leliana, another arrow in flight and the bard's hand notching another to the bowstring. Her expression was calm and resolute as the bard channelled her fear and horror into rage, an emotion far more useful in the battle to come. It was advice Arthur chose to take.

"KILL IT! KILL THIS BEAST!" Arthur roared at the top of his lungs, leaping to his feet and drawing his sword free. There could be no more room for pity or mercy, no sympathy for the person the monster had been. Laryn could not be saved, only put out of her misery.

The broodmother let out a furious shriek, directing the full brunt of its gaze at Arthur, its remaining eye brimming with undiluted hate. The Warden doubted the creature had understood what he'd said, but considering the half dozen armed figures closing around it, the giant darkspawn had to know it was threatened. Two more tentacles darted out like snakes, but Arthur was ready this time; leaping away from their strike, Arthur slashed out with Duncan's sword, severing both with ease, the stumps bleeding black ichor as the wailing monster drew them back to its body. Three more burst out of the ground; Arthur sliced one in half as it lunged, pinned the second under his foot and hacked it off, only to then be swept off his feet as the third tentacle curled around his ankles. But before it could take advantage, Edward leapt to the attack, seizing the tentacle and tearing it up out of the ground in a spray of dark blood like uprooting a weed. At the same time as getting back to his feet, Arthur heard a whoosh of flames roaring to life as Arabella let loose a fireball that slammed into the monster's right shoulder, setting the oily secretions coating it ablaze, while Wynne and Leliana threw glass bottles that smashed against the beast's chest, drenching its sagging teats in acid, and now an edge of fear crept into the broodmother's wails. It lashed out again, its tentacles cracking like whips, but the warriors hacked their way through the fleshy, suckered thicket with ease.

They had it now. With enough of its tentacles severed, there wouldn't be enough for the creature to defend itself against all of them and while some kept it distracted, the others could move in for the kill. Made immobile and helpless by its own mutations, it wouldn't stand a chance, Arthur thought as he advanced with the others, grinning savagely.

And then the broodmother threw back its head and let loose an ear-splitting scream that reverberated off the cavern walls, echoing long after the beast had stopped. And its cry was heard.

"It's calling for help!" Arthur roared, ripping Duncan's dagger from its sheath and hurling it, the blade spinning end over end and slamming into the neck of one of the two dozen darkspawn emerging from the other side passages into the cavern. Leliana spun round and shot an arrow point blank into the chest of a charging hurlock, dropping it and causing two more behind it to trip over its corpse. Arabella and Wynne likewise spun round, Wynne conjuring a jet of ice onto the floor that sent a trio of genlocks sprawling to the ground, magicial lightning from her counterpart's fingertips fatally electrocuting the downed creatures, while Oghren spun round like a dervish, snapping the legs of any darkspawn that got in the way of his hammer. Arthur made to fight at the dwarf's side as he smashed the chest of a hurlock even as the mabari tore out its throat, but Oghren waved him away.

"No, me, the hairball and the walking rockery will handle this bunch! You and the ladies concentrate on Fatso over there!"

Arthur nodded and returned to facing the broodmother, only to hear a scream of fright as Leliana was lifted by her leg by yet another tentacle that had burst up from the ground behind her, but before it could retract to deposit her in its waiting grasp, Wynne sent a boulder hurtling straight into the left side of the beast's skull, crushing the temple and the eye socket, driving bone shards into the remaining eye. The monster's already horrid screams only increased as its arms tried to clutch feebly at its blinded eyes, dropping Leliana in the bloody slime right in front of it in its agony. Arthur made to go to her side before pressing the advantage, but a trio of genlocks intercepted him, though Arthur could not tell whether they were still trying to seperate Leliana from the others or defend the broodmother. The closest lost its head to Arthur's sword but the two remaining leapt out of reach of the slash, trying to take advantage of the opening, but Arthur blocked the stab and slammed the shield into one's chest and the sword's pommel into the other's forehead. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur could see Leliana getting back to her feet...

##############

Leliana shook her head to clear it, getting groggily to her feet. The screams of the blinded broodmother were ear-splitting, only intensifying as Arabella bathed its face and chest in fire conjured from her hands.

"Die! Die, you wretched thing, just DIE!" the mage screamed at the top of her lungs. Leliana could well understand the panic-driven fury that the woman was feeling, because the same thoughts were going through her head; had things been more different, could the taint have forced the same horrific transformations on Arabella? Could she have become the next monster to rot in the darkness, birthing more and more of the foul monsters that had poisoned and mutated her until the mercy of death finally claimed her?

Leliana knew what it was like to be violated, to be used to satisfy men's cruel lusts and desires for their pleasures through her pain but this...this was beyond even that horrific sort of defilement. No matter what this beast was, once it had been a woman just like her, had likely had plans, dreams, loves and no one deserved to be left to linger like this for the rest of their life, denied passage to the Maker's or the Ancestors' side, kept as a deformed and deranged slave to satisfy the depraved lusts and urges of the darkspawn . 'I will free you, sister, I swear it!'

The broodmother was blind in both eyes, unable to see how close she was, its sense of smell overwhelmed by the other fetid odours to catch her scent. It was their best opportunity, but the others were surrounded by tentacles and darkspawn desperately trying to defend their matriarch; it would have to be her.

Putting aside her bow and unsheathing one of her daggers and the brutal-looking axe she'd claimed from the spider nest, Leliana broke into a run, leaping onto the broodmother's insectile abdomen in a cat-like crouch, before leaping up, trying to gain a hand-hold on the greasy skin of the broodmother's back. Her left hand found purchase in the fatty folds, but her right lost its grip and she would have gone sliding off had she not swung out with her weapon at the last second, the dragonbone axe blade sinking into the meaty shoulder. The broodmother, alerted to her presence now, begin to buck and thrash, its blind head swinging wildly from side to side, as well as using several of its tentacles to try and prise her off, but she stabbed out with perfect precision as the tentacles lunged, fending them off until her torso was level with the beast's neck, wrapping an arm around its throat to keep herself in place, trying not to vomit in disgust at being in close proximity to such foulness.

The smell of the creature was even worse so close, but Leliana somehow suppressed her rising gorge as she left the axe embedded in the colossal darkspawn's shoulder and drew the Thorn of the Dead Gods in her right hand. The leathery skin and layers of blubbery fat at the back were too thick for the dagger to penetrate deep enough to do any serious injury, but she could see a far more effective point to strike...

Plunging the dagger in her left hand at the juncture between neck and shoulder, she managed to get the Thorn under the multiple chins as the broodmother pulled its head back to scream in pain, driving the dagger into the soft skin at the throat. The silverite's cold bite drew yet another howl from the beast as it realised it was in mortal danger, its desperate thrashings to try and shake her off only increasing, but Leliana evaded the grasping appendages trying to seize her and with a guttural snarl, the bard pushed the dagger in as deep as it would go, and then tore it across the throat. The tough skin, flesh and fat resisted for a moment, but couldn't stop the razor sharpness from cutting through with lethal effect. The broodmother's screams reached a horrific pitch as its lifeblood flooded down its bloated belly in a jet-black fountain, its strength swiftly ebbing away, the tentacles thrashing spasmodically in its death throes, its weakening gurgles intermingling with the bard's joyous cry of triumph...

Until she felt the tentacle coiling around her belt, dragging her off her perch...

Tossing her through the air with considerable force, sending her hurtling towards the cave wall with quite some speed...

"Oh merde" she muttered just before her head connected with the stone.

###############

"Leliana!" Arthur roared, desperately trying to fight down the panic that surged through him as he watched the mortally injured broodmother seize her in its tentacles and then toss her away with considerable force towards the cavern wall, the bard colliding headfirst with the unyielding stone with an audible crunch and slumping to the floor, unmoving. But his initial fear was nothing compared to the terror that shot through him, sinking icy claws into his heart as he watched three hurlocks break away from trying to overwhelm Oghren and race over to the downed woman. He initially feared that they intended to kill her in her helpless state, but when he saw the darkspawn lift her up, two holding her by her arms, the other clutching her legs, a more terrifying realisation took its place:

'The broodmother is dying...and so now, a replacement is required'

He could see her begin to struggle as she realised what was happening, came to the same conclusion and realised the danger she was in, hearing his name being screamed desperately at the top of her voice, begging him to save her again, but the enemy were working together to deny him. Two hurlocks threw themselves at him, uncaring as he ran them through, using their dying bodies to weigh him down. The other companions seemed to be doing the same, to reach the bard before it was too late, Wynne shooting arcane bolts towards the would-be abductors, but other darkspawn leapt in their way, taking the fatal blow, Oghren trying to hack his way through but more darkspawn threw themselves at him even as he cut down their predecessors; even Edward tried to break through to his master's lover, but a shriek that had emerged from one of the side passages tackled the dog, the two animals clawing and biting each other in a frenzy, all else forgotten.

Arthur had never felt such despair in his life: the darkspawn were too determined to keep their prize, genlocks and hurlocks sacrificing themselves without pause to let those holding Leliana get away, too many in his path to reach her. She would be taken-it would be too easy for the darkspawn to lose their pursuers in the labyrinth of tunnels and catacombs they made their lairs in- and there, they would feed her, change her, force her into a form of their choosing, until there was nothing left of the beautiful, compassionate, wonderful woman he'd fallen in love with; just a deranged, bestial husk condemned to end her days in some distant cavern, shut away from the sky and screaming her madness into the uncaring darkness as she brought more of the monsters that had befouled her Maker's world into existence...

And then he heard the sound of rushing wind, even though there was no way a breeze could be blowing through the tunnels and felt an acrid bitter taste in the back of his mouth; the sign of sorcery being summoned, the roaring winds called into being blowing darkspawn off their feet, clearing a path to the fleeing three. Looking round, Arthur saw Arabella rising up into the air, her arms outstretched as if she were about to take flight, chanting words rapidly in the language of Tevinter, the incantation audible even over the raging winds. In her right hand was her staff, its headpiece crackling with magical electricity; in her right was a short-bladed knife, its blade dripping with blood, the same blood that was dripping from a self-inflicted wound on her left shoulder, the blood hissing like meat on a skillet as the power within was drawn forth, coalescing into an orb of crackling energy level with her chest. Arabella cast aside her staff and the blade, her incantation reaching a crescendo as she seized the orb, continuing to grow as she bled into it, growing from the size of an apple, to that of a melon, to the size of a human head-

"Rise! Rise, you wretched dead! Rise up and avenge yourself on those who slew you!" Arabella roared at the top of her voice in Arcanum as she descended with alarming speed, slamming the globe of magical energy in her hands into the ground, the magic spreading across the floor to where the darkspawn holding Leliana were trying to flee...and the dozens of corpse and skeletons picked clean and left to rot on the cave floor began to rise up, the necromantic magic the young mage had summoned instilling them with a measure of life, orbs of eldritch blue light flickering in empty eye sockets, forming a barricade of flesh and bone between the darkspawn trying to carry off Leliana and the safety of the tunnels. Arthur pushed down the surge of horrified astonishment at being witness to the sort of magic he'd fought against not so long ago, because it might be his last chance to save her.

The undead Arabella had summoned were not strong or fast, and the darkspawn needed little more than a few blows to hack the walking skeletons into pieces, but there were dozens of them and the darkspawn were unwilling to relinquish their prize to devote their full attention to fighting their way through, so their progress at hacking through the blocking undead attackers was slow...just enough for him to catch up. As the darkspawn tried to cut their way through the walking dead to safety, Arthur fell upon them like a falcon among pigeons, and then there was no safety or mercy to be had.

The first hurlock he reached, the one holding the bard up by her legs, had its right arm hacked off at the shoulder before it realised it was in danger; Arthur plunged his sword into its back as it clutched screaming at the gaping wound. The second, holding the bard by her left arm with its back to him, turned round at the sound of its brood mate screaming, and Arthur opened its throat, the fiend dropping his lover as it vainly tried to staunch the dark blood flooding from its opened neck. The third had the sense to let go of its captive to draw its sword, but Arthur's frenzy would not be denied; his first blow the hurlock parried, but the force of it sent the warrior to its knees. The second blow snapped the sword halfway along its length, the crudely forged steel no match for the honed, enchanted dragonbone and the third buried the sword almost to the hilt in the hurlock's chest. Arthur let the sword stay there for a moment, then twisted the blade and tore it out in a downward slash that disembowelled the darkspawn, the hurlock collapsing to the slushy ground entangled in its own intestines. Arthur grabbed Leliana and all but dragged her out of the way, leaving the hurlock to die squirming in its own guts. When they were out of reach of any darkspawn, Arthur reclaimed his sword, preparing to return to the fray, to make the darkspawn pay for what they had dared to try and take from him in so much blood they would drown in it-

Only to find it was all but over; the handful of darkspawn that remained trying to retreat back into the pits from where they emerged, but the companions were merciless: Arthur stayed by Leliana's side, watching as Arabella's skeletal minions encircled the darkspawn and drove them back towards the waiting Shale, Oghren and Edward, who tore through the remaining creatures like hot knives through butter; Shale tore off limbs and crushed skulls, the mabari tore out throats and crippled legs and the dwarf finished off those Edward and Shale left behind or missed , staving in ribcages and smashing heads to mush. Arabella shot bolts of lightning and balls of fire at any darkspawn that escaped the others or her 'puppets', while Wynne raced over to the bard, running her hands over Leliana, glowing green energy coursing over her, searching for any sign of the taint or injury. After a few seconds, the flow of magical energy ceased and Wynne, giving the Orlesian woman a small smile and placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder said "You're alright"

Leliana nodded mutely at this, before turning her attention fully to Arthur, her lip quivering, emerald eyes brimming with tears on the verge of spilling."You came for me"

"Always" Arthur swore fervently. "I swore that I would always fight to protect you, and I always keep my word"

Leliana nodded mechanically, and then the dam burst and Leliana collapsed against him, sobbing uncontrollably at what had almost come to pass, and Arthur just knelt there beside her, uncaring of the filthy muck around them as he pulled away her helm, stroking her hair and muttering simple comforts to calm her, to reassure her that she was safe, still uncorrupted, that the evil that had sought to claim her for itself had not found purchase on her.

"It's alright, it's alright, you're safe, I won't let them take you, I will never let anything harm you" he swore fervently with every motion of his fingers through her hair, her sobs slowing as she began to calm. the wracking tremors beginning to ease. Edward, Oghren and Shale were busy finishing off the wounded or dying darkspawn, but Wynne broke away from them for another target, reaching Arabella with a look of pugnacious fury on her face, sharply jabbing a finger into the younger woman's chest to get her attention.

"That was among the worst sort of magic one could use, worthy of the depravities of the magisters of old. Are you no better than that fiend at Ostagar?"

"A minor evil for a greater good!" Arabella retorted angrily. "The Grey Wardens make use of every weapon, every tool that comes to hand! Are you blind, you old fool? Did you not see what was happening? I saved Leliana's life! What would you have me do, stand idly by and let those aberrations drag her off to be their plaything?"

"How about saving her by not using magic as abhorrent as that? You're a mage and a Grey Warden; you're supposed to be an example of how mages should be, not a-"

"That's where they come from." Hespith's voice, no longer distorted by the tunnels, was startlingly close, and a moment's search revealed the dwarf standing on a ledge directly above the bloated carcass, staring down at them and pointing at the dead monster. The meagre light from the flames cast her deformed features into an eerie light, and the silvery sheen of her eyes was unnervingly prominent. Her gaze was fixed squarely on Leliana and Arabella, as if making a final reminder of how close they'd come to sharing the same fate as her, Laryn and Maker knew how many others, before it finally turned to the Warden.

"That's why they hate us... that's why they need us. That's why they take us... that's why they feed us. But the true abomination... is not that it occurred, but that it was allowed. Branka... my love... The Stone has punished me, dream friend. I am dying of something worse than death. Betrayal."

Arthur seized Leliana's discarded bow, notching the shaft and pulling back the string, uncertain whether he was about to shoot to put the dwarf woman out of her misery or to just shut her up, unwilling to listen to any more of the poisonous insanity she'd whispered in their ears, unable to give a precise name to the emotion that roiled through him as he drew back the bowstring- Pity? Fear? Revulsion? Rage? Perhaps all four?-, but it was a futile gesture: with a final soft gasp, Hespith stepped out into empty air, falling, crashing into the cave wall twice, landing headfirst with a wet snap on the broodmother's hulking corpse, before crash-landing in a broken heap, dead before she'd hit the ground. 'Better that than what was to come'

"Forgive her, but no, she can't be forgiven, not for what she did, not for what she has become" Hespith had said, and if there was any truth in her madness, then Branka had led all the people of her House, the men and women who'd trusted in her, believed she would lead them to both safety and glory, instead to their deaths or worse than death, and for what?

'So much death, so much madness and misery caused for the sake of just one woman and her ambitions' Arthur thought despairingly as they piled up Hespith's corpse, those of the darkspawn and as many of the repulsive eggs as they could find around the broodmother's carcass and then set the whole lot ablaze, hoping the pyre would distract any more darkspawn that came nosing around after them as they made their way deeper into the tunnels, but Arthur's mind was fixed on one morbid thought; that in this place of madness and horror, they had not seen the worst of it.

For all that we've seen in this tunnels, I think we've yet to meet the worst monster down here'