Disclaimer: "Dragon Age: Origins" and all its expansions and additional content is the property of Bioware and EA Games. Large portions of written content within the game, as well as Dragon's Age: The Stolen Throne, and Dragon's Age: Calling, are the creation of David Gaider. Original scenarios and characters are used under the creative license of the writer, ItalianEmpress1985. No profit is being made and the following story is for entertainment purposes only.

Words From The Author: If anyone wants to have their skin crawl reading this, as I did writing it, I was listening to 'Sub Level 3' from the 'Aliens' from a VERY creepy scene in the movie and the music fit quite well with our resident wailing women. So I've put the link up to it, listed under extras on my profile.

So there is no official name given to the ages in Thedas history that came before the Divine Age (at least none I can find), which was 1:1, other than to call it TE much like we have BC, but it was the time when the Old Gods were worshipped and the pinnacle of the Magisters' influences 'blessed' by the Old Gods. So I named it The Dark Age, it seemed to suit the way the Chantry goes about naming the ages, maybe they would consider the time before the first Divine as a dark time, where only the Chantry brought 'light' to the people afterward through the blessings of the Maker, but it's only 'canon' in so far as this story is concerned. Outside of it, I make no claims that it would be the same. And for reference, the characters are speaking Tevene, but this time I decided to write it in English (Fereldish) since I think a translation there might have ruined the feel of it.

SPECIAL NOTE: The lovely Jaffa strikes again, this time with a wonderful portrait of our scarred and strident Ser Gerod Caron, which is up on DeviantArt as you read this. I've put the link to it, as always, in my profile, listed under extras.

Also, happy Easter to those celebrating it, don't eat too many jelly beans! :p

Thank you for stopping in. Watch out for low flying dragons!


Chapter Fifty Four:

Brides of Urthemiel


June 17'th, 7:90 TE, Dark Age

The young woman, belly filled with the growing, burning seed of a dragon god, was brought to the dais.

Lord Urthemiel's eyes were fierce and golden upon her, watching from a place upon His obsidian throne. His guise was the practiced glamour of a human, belying His true size, set high above the dais, overlooking it all as His servants watched in kind.

A ring of fire parted as if a thing alive, the woman's breathing frightened and hitched as she was led there, her red hair catching the light of it and looking as if it too were burning.

Always the ones with red hair, that was what He liked, their Unholy Lord, and she had been sacrificed to appease Him. Her maidenhead offered to the immortal entity as the newest of His brides. At first she was honored to be chosen as the mate of a god, but now . . . now there was only fear.

"Please, I . . . I don't want to die!" She implored the priest, a thin Tevinter magister brought to Urthemiel's service, her Avaar accent tripping over the more elegant Tevene language.

"If fate decrees it, you shall survive this and be given the highest spot of honor beside Morgreth the Undying." The priest offered, no hint of sympathy in his smooth voice, only the certainty of his fanatical devotion to Morgreth Urthemiel. His one true god. "Weep not, young bride, perhaps you are the one He has been waiting for, perhaps you shall be the mother of the Great Dragons, to bring them back to their glory. You should be grateful."

Her bare feet touched the warm stone, the white gown His servants had made for her tickling her ankles as the breeze off the flames moved it. She put a hand to her belly, wincing at the hot lance across it. Barely two months and the girl was already swollen to bursting. They grew fast, the Old Ones, but if the mother was unable, they did not live long. She knew that, had been told as much as the priests prepared her for her new role, but had never allowed herself to think of what that meant for the women that had come before her, all the brides of Urthemiel that no longer drew breath. Now she was one of their select group.

"I am grateful! I am . . . just please . . . please My Lord, do not kill me!" Her eyes drew big and wide, pleading with the entity that watched her from His high perch. She could not see His face through the flames, but the coldness of His answer could pierce even the hottest fire.

"It is not I that shall kill you, my dear one, but your failure to carry my seed that shall prove your end. My son hatches soon and we shall see if you are worthy." His voice boomed as a long roll of thunder, deep as the fissures in the earth. "If you are not, I shall have another use for you."

As the chanting began, the ring of fire closing and encircling her within its barrier, she screamed as another burst of heat seared her insides. Falling to the ground and writhing into a ball of agony, she began to shriek with the pain of it. The roaring of the flames and the loud unified chanting like a macabre symphony to the screams of her unnatural childbirth.

The flesh of her belly began to bubble from the heat, turning red and then white, yet the gown did not burn, made just for this purpose and enchanted against Urthemiel's unholy flames. "No! No! No!" She screamed, but each denial was met with another lick of flame inside her womb. The child she carried was burning its way out and she felt every moment of it.

As it burst free, her skin splitting open into burning ribbons of raw flesh, the woman wailed, an awful piercing sound that was heard over the roar of the Old God, as he bemoaned another failure. Her death came swiftly, even as the echoes of her shrieking seemed to absorb the flames and cast towards the night sky, full of pain and mourning.


June 17'th, 9:31, Dragon Age

Amstead shifted on his feet, from heel to toe and back again, leaning against the arch and staring towards town. "When do you think they'll come back? I'm getting hungry enough to eat that damn sheep." The thing made a short 'baa' as if it heard him.

One of the teyrn's men shook his head. "Don't know, I'm pretty sure we got all of Howe's men. Even if the teyrn's a might worried about them staying here, we'd have seen some signs of fighting if they had, like as not. Maybe they wanted to get a good meal in before sending someone back to notify us."

"Well, I hope it's soon. It's dark already and I can almost taste those Greenfell lamb chops." Amstead grinned, thinking about the barmaids at the inn. There were some just as tasty as the village's famed mutton, the last time he'd passed through there before the Blight had torn the country to shit. "Teyrn Cousland runs you all a little ragged, does he?"

There was a glare earned for the knight's trouble. "Certainly not. Can't imagine serving under a better man. A lot like his father that one, he expects the best from all of us, and won't settle for less. We know to mind our place and our business, not slouch about and moan our belly's problems. There could be more men like him, and the country would be better for it."

Amstead's nostrils flared, crossing his arms. "You wouldn't be slighting our Good King Alistair, now would you?"

"Have I reason to, boy?" The older man sneered, though he wasn't that much older than Amstead. "Guilty conscience? Paranoid that everyone can see the famed Knights of Denerim might not be as skilled as they ought? Maybe, if your order had been trained as the Couslands have always trained their men, King Cailan would still be alive."

"How dare you besmirch my honor and that of my brothers! I should run you through and prove who is the better man here!" Amstead threatened, pale cheeks reddening in anger.

"Go on then, boy, prove how undisciplined you really are!" The teyrn's man retorted.

"What's all this bleeding noise?" A black haired barrel of a man that Amstead knew as a Lord Garvloch under Teyrn Cousland's service, and the man placed temporarily in charge of those that had stayed at the gate until Ser Gilmore's return, came towards them. He was a born soldier, with a gruff voice, who clearly had to try hard to maintain the expectations of the nobility he was born into.

Amstead thought Lord Garvloch would have been better suited as a blacksmith's son or a frigate sailor, but he wasn't going to tell him that. The man was built like Ser Hadrian, only larger. Though Ser Amstead didn't consider himself a coward, it was a foolish hound that picked a fight with a bear without good cause. The smaller man puffed up his chest as much as he could. "Maybe, you should be telling Teyrn Cousland that his men ought to be minding their tongues."

"And maybe the king's lickspittles had better mind their own manners around their betters!" His opponent returned in quick order.

Garvloch wasn't having any of it, cuffing his brother at arms. "Enough of that shit, Lord Henley! We're here to guard the gate until the teyrn orders us otherwise, not pick fights like two whores clawing at each other over the best customer of the evening!" Dark eyes glared at the knight in turn. "Teyrn Cousland would be ashamed to know his men couldn't follow such simple orders, and I'm sure Our King would be no more pleased to find his knights acting so stupidly. Mind yourselves, the both of you, because if someone was out there and we failed in our duty to protect our High Lord and His Majesty, that dishonor would be on your heads!"

"Aye milord."

"Yes, captain."

Garvloch nodded, assuaged for the moment. A low sound off in the distance caught his attention, a hand at his sword hilt. "Eh! You hear that?"

All three men listened intently, the faint sounds of a girl crying crawling towards them on the early night air. "Villager maybe?" Lord Henley offered, shrugging and drawing his own sword.

The other men, gathered farther off to guard the wagons, hadn't heard, but Amstead informed them all the same, the three men going off to check it out.

A high moon lit the blades of grass, a sheen of fine dew making the field look shiny. Amstead felt the dampness trying to seep in through his boots, but he'd waterproofed them with wax some time ago, at the insistence of his overly-doting mother. Now he was glad for her harping. There was naught but the rustle of the knights and the lord's soldiers moving as quietly as they could, a thatch of willows rising up from the robust earth not far from them.

It wasn't until Ser Amstead took a deep breath, body taut with tension, that he realized the air had a peculiar heaviness to it, not made better by the eerie silence surrounding them. Not even the chirping of crickets, or owls that surely nested in the trees . . . just silence, and he shivered involuntarily. The whimpering noise had certainly come from this direction though.

"Too damn quiet!" Lord Henley hissed, Garvloch quick to shush him.

"Listen!" The bigger man ordered, fingers curling into a tight fist over the hilt of his blade. "There! Hear it?"

No answer was given, but for that faint crying, a strange echoing quality to it.

The king's knight was raised in the courtly ways, and though he didn't always prescribe to them, Amstead certainly took to heart the saving of damsels in distress, which was often its own reward. A sincere smile curved his lips as he went forward, a hand out to part the low hanging brambles, heavy with the willow leaves they bore.

"Here, miss, there's no need to be afraid. I'm a Knight of Denerim, and I have with me two of Good Teyrn Cousland's men. We mean you no harm, and can offer you any aid you might require." He kept his voice low and calming, back twitching as he waited for some wise ass commentary from behind him, but there was none.

"Come out, girl!" Came Lord Garvloch's brusque, though not unkind, command.

Through the heavy branches, a figure took shape in the moonlight, pale and wan as the long hair that went down her back, huddled to her knees as she was, keening low and persistent.

Amstead felt a peculiar unease creep up his spine, but swallowed it down, motioning the other two to move forward slowly as he did the same, putting his sword away and extending a hand. "It's alright, miss, really, we can help you."

"No one . . . can . . . help me." She whimpered, voice stagnate and warbling, gasping as if she was choked up in a cloud of smoke.

"Your voice . . . are you ill? Sick with something?" Henley dared the question, taking a step back. Maybe that was why the village was so quiet, a plague a far faster killer than any highwayman, and a lot harder to fight. He wanted no part of it.

"Sick? Yes . . . sick. My lord husband . . . is sick. He needs you . . . He needs all of . . . you." Her voice skipped into a high pitch, as if filled with a macabre glee.

Lord Garvloch's face blanched. "What the hell is the matter with you, girl?" As Amstead moved forward, he grabbed the knight's elbow. "She's clearly mad, don't go near her!" He cautioned in a low breath.

"Nonsense." Amstead scoffed, not willing to be made the coward in front of the other two. The smile was back, though a bit less sincere, as his gloved hand fell to the woman's bony shoulder. His eyes fell to the tattered cloth that encased it, hanging down a back so thin that the bones in her spine visibly raised the ruined dress. She'd been out here a while, must be. "Easy love, just stay calm, and we'll help you and your husband soon after, if you just take us to him . . .." His words were strangled from his throat by the instant horror he felt when she finally turned around.

Bones clicked as the figure rose up, facing the men, the moonlight casting a horrific light through the large hole in her belly, the thin cloth over it doing nothing to obscure the fact that most of her stomach was a gaping maw. A lipless smile drew her grotesque face up high to her eyes, the dripping black skin around that hideous mouth looking like rotten blood as it fell from her chin in a slow awful drip.

"Take you . . . to him? Yes . . . yes I will." The milky white eyes of a corpse widened on the three before the creature, as it panted in labor over its own words.

Lord Henley screamed first, repulsed and terrified by the sight before him. He went to run, as the other two were frozen in horrified shock, but she turned, hissing before her mouth opened impossibly wide, an inhuman shriek issuing forth that sent Henley to the ground, skin showing the red lines of cracked flesh.

"Maker!" He gasped in pain, the wet ground pressed to one cheek as he tried to wiggle around.

Garvloch snarled in anger, finally able to move past the shock in his limbs and ran the thing through with his sword. A victorious smile disappeared when the unearthly woman only turned around, the blade skewering her without effect.

She hissed, Garvloch stumbling back as she moved on him, that awful wail tearing the large man apart, even as he screamed, until his body was broken to pieces by the force of her shriek.

Henley was choking on the ground, too hurt to move, as Amstead shouted in disgust as he was splattered with Garvloch's fresh blood. The crimson painted his blonde hair red, dripping down his face as he turned to run, bravery forgotten in the face of this nameless enemy. He needed help, he needed . . .

The thought was caught up in her scream, and he was thrown to ground as if a mage's conjured fist had pummeled into his back. "No! I have to tell the others!" He yelled, protesting his doom even as it approached.

She knelt on the ground before him, ichor oozed through grey teeth, falling onto his legs as she crawled forward, Garvloch's sword still stuck uselessly through her chest. "You . . . are not . . . pure." She snarled as if angered by the notion, before she opened her mouth, and Amstead looked into the blackness of his own death as it screamed around him like the harshest wind, wailing across the bannorn and tearing him apart.


A breath in, a breath out, her heart thudding like a war drum, beating violently against her ribs, air wheezing from her lungs with the copper taste of fear and exhaustion. Gwyneth was conscious of nothing more than her own existence, and that of the young boy she was dragging along behind her. The damp of the night air was too calm, the moon too gentle for the horror found around them.

Someone screamed, but she didn't know who it was, not turning to look.

Their desperate flight from the Chantry had been only seconds, but it felt like a life time, fear of the unknown nearly stealing the ability to move, but then she'd seen the boy's 'pale ladies' creatures that had surely come from the depths. Back pressed to that stone wall as she'd looked out in horror to see dozens of them in the village, hunting for something . . . hunting for them, and it became clear how Greenfell was emptied so quickly.

"Gwyneth!" Her name through the dark, through the madness, and she turned, when someone took Harold from her, hoisting the lad up on one hip, a long sword in the other hand. Her palm was taken in the firm grasp of her brother, only a moment of relief that pierced her shock and they were running again.

A wail came at them, and Gwyneth was thrown back, falling painfully into an overturned cart. Her head exploded with pain, the world blurring around her. Getting to her feet, her neck felt like it was loose, more belonging to a marionette than to a living human, her limbs attached to the strings of her owner. Finally she moved, sounds and movement nothing but a haze, as if she was in the Fade.

"Fergus!" She screamed, hearing a groan, and panicking. "Where are you?" Nothing answered her, but a wheezing breath and when her vision cleared, the queen fell back to the ground in revulsion. "Maker!"

The emaciated face of the creature turned to look at her, head twitching in the jarring movements of a praying mantis she'd once seen in her mother's garden. Harold lay prone beneath it, the macabre mockery of a woman holding the boy's shirt front, the lad frozen in his fear. The rags it wore draped down as it caressed Harold's face. It seemed content to ignore the woman in its presence, turning away from her to grasp the boy's chin.

"So . . . pure. My husband needs . . . your life." It hissed opening that awful black maw, a shimmer of darkness and shadow seeming to pour from its mouth, pulling at the boy's own screaming lips, drawing the air from him as he gasped.

Gwyneth didn't know why the thing ignored her, and she didn't care, trying to stand on her feet. Fergus was rousing where he had fallen, but she was quicker. She stumbled, boots fighting to find an even purchase on the bumpy village road. Her gloved hands reached behind her, reassured by the weight of her short swords, still secured in their sheaths.

She wanted to run, wanted to move quicker than her body would allow. Eyes dimmed, but Gwyneth fought to keep them open, trying to speak as a trail of blood dripped freely from her nose and through her lips. "Get . . . away . . . from him!" She snarled, panting through her ferocity, ignoring everything but Harold and the monstrosity that looked to be draining the life from him.

It hissed, dropping the boy to the ground, neck clicking like old bones when it turned to face her. What was left of its rotted nose sniffed at her, a mouth as black as scorched earth trying to grin. "I smell My Lord . . . upon you . . . smell His . . . favor. You are . . . as we were . . . once, young bride."

The wheezing hollow sound of its voice dragged cold fingers across Gwyneth's soul and she shivered but stood her ground, horrified that it could speak, but bolstered by it in kind. "I don't know what . . . you are." She gasped, forcing the words out of tortured lungs, wincing at how similar to this thing it made her sound. "I don't know who your . . lord is, but you will fall here, I swear it, if you . . . do not let the boy go!"

"You. . . fear for the child?" It laughed, a horrible sound, like the cacophony of a thousand crows, their cawing matched with a chorus of demons. "Do not. His life force . . . will go to the Great Urthemiel . . . He will be remade . . . and he will come to you . . . Then, young bride . . . you will understand."

Gwyneth recoiled, moaning in horror at its hideous words.

It reached for the boy again, but before it could act, Noble ran towards it, leaping at the monster with his jaws open, clamping them tightly into its neck, as spurts of black ichor sprayed, coating his fur. The thing shrieked and bucked, trying to get a hold of the mabari, jaws snapping together as the canine's teeth tore the thing's throat open.

Finally dislodging the mabari, it screamed at him, Gwyneth lunging at the same time, both her and Noble flung back from the force of it. Noble yelped, his body thrown to the road, bleeding.

Gwyneth's vision was blackening, her swords fallen to the ground. Something cracked, but she couldn't even manage to scream in pain. Her ears rang, and when she called for Noble, his name seemed like a strangled whisper, echoing down a long corridor.

Fergus had found his feet, screaming for his sister. Weaving dangerously, he had his blade out, as the creature turned on him, but when it tried to shriek, only a bubble of black fluid oozed from its mouth, running thickly from its open neck and down one flank. It choked on the scream, stumbling back.

They'd tried to fight them off at first, but the boy had been right, they weren't injured by weapons. But maybe Noble had managed to hurt this one, and Fergus was of sound enough mind to take advantage.

"Let's see you scream your way out of this, bitch!" He swung his blade, ignoring the painful sensation down his spine, as it threw itself at him, emaciated arms reaching out when it hissed. The blade hit its mark, silverite finding the thing's already damaged neck, and severed it. An unholy wail echoed up from the creature's headless body, as if still connected through whatever essence it possessed, before dissipating into an unnatural mist.

The pain finally sent him to his knees, head swimming, as the teyrn took a deep breath, wincing at the tightness in his lungs. "Gwyn . . . Gwyn . . ." Fergus croaked, crawling across the ground towards his sister.

She was lain over her mabari, cradling him, but her posture was frozen there as if she had died as she was, mistress and mabari together in death. He felt his eyes grow cloudy with tears, reaching out for her. "You can't leave me." One knee gave out and he fell to the dirt beside her. "Gwyn, please . . . I love you! Please, not like this!" The Teyrn of Highever had never begged, too proud to beseech anyone, but he did now, screaming at the Maker, even as his head pounded with stomach wrenching pain.

Someone else was coming, he heard them, the sound ringing in his ears as if far away, though he sensed they weren't. Fergus held his sister, whispering until his voice was too hoarse for even that. The hissing of one of those things came up behind him, but he couldn't be bothered to care. If Gwyneth was gone, the Maker might as well take him too.

"Kill me . . . if you are going to." Death was on his doorstep, and Fergus would greet it with a smile.

It opened its mouth, readying the scream that would break him into pieces as they had done to the others, to his men and the king's. So many gone, in a matter of minutes. He should have never suggested they stop here, never let the king or his sister agree to it. They'd been led here as lambs to the slaughter, and it seemed meaningless. So much fighting, surviving civil war and the Blight, only to find their end in Greenfell.

"Not today, I think!" A voice from the darkness in Fergus' vision, Alistair standing behind the creature, and as it turned, he bashed into it with his shield, the thing snapping at him, and rounding about. "I'm going send you back to the depths you came from!" He bellowed, bashing at it repeatedly, until the thing was dazed.

"You . . . cannot . . . defeat me! I am . . . blessed . . . by My Lord." It snarled, mouth dripping with the rotted fluid inside its body.

Alistair had seen how Fergus had done it, and felt a feral grin forming on his face, leaning back on his heels for a powerful lunge. It went to wail at him, but he plowed his shield into her before she could manage it, and swung his blade around, cutting off her head. The body crumpled before the king's feet, his face splattered with black ichor, but he was smiling madly through it.

"Not so blessed after all, it seems."

A choking noise caught his attention, the boy Harold lain on ground, convulsing with his gasping coughs. Alistair went to him, setting his shield aside as he cradled the boy's head. "Breathe, Harold, take a deep breath." The boy's eyes fell on him, and he smiled, patting his back and helping him sit up.

"She . . . it . . . tried to kill me!" He wailed, gasping for air and taking a deep loud breath when his lungs remembered how to work. "The queen . . . she saved me. Is . . . Is she . . ." The question trailed off as both of them looked for her.

Alistair's smile fell, eyes widening in grieved horror. Both Couslands were unmoving, Fergus cradling his sister as Gwyneth was lain protectively over Noble, their bodies bloodied and deathly still. It was a bittersweet and awful still-life portrait before Alistair's sight, and he fell to his knees beside them, screaming for help, for anyone that was left.


Sunlight. There was sunlight and the annoying chatter of birds . . . and an awful lump behind her head. Gwyneth reached for it, her unsteady fingers encountering a bandage, wrapped around her skull and down past her jaw, nearly covering one eye. She groaned, trying to move. Everything hurt and her mind felt like she'd just woken up after a night of lotus and heavy drinking.

"Fer . . . Fergus?" She swallowed, her mouth dry, trying to see where she was, eyes cracking open to the canvas of a tent above her. Warmth slid into her palm, strong fingers curling around hers.

"I'm here, Pup." The teyrn's voice was as rough as her own, but clear enough to speak, that it was obvious he'd been awake longer. His lips brushed her knuckles briefly, holding them under his chin, as he smiled grimly at her when she turned her head.

He had a black eye, puffed up and shining purple with tinges of yellow forming in the hollow of his cheek. His forehead had been bandaged much like his sister's, and Fergus was also sporting a thick wrap around his ribs, the teyrn favoring his right side, even as he sat beside the queen.

"Thank the Maker! I thought . . ." Gwyneth was unable to finish, the panicked fear of last night reaching up to seize her lungs once more. A thought hit her . . . was it even last night? "How long have we been out?"

"You? About nine hours, myself somewhere around eight. Your husband and Ser Boughton managed to set up a decent camp while we were wandering the Fade. We're somewhere near the Knotwood Hills, safe, for now." He knew she'd want to know all of that, giving her the information before she even asked.

Her memory was coming back, and she sat up like a bolt, regretting it when she was forced to cradle her throbbing head. Fergus waited patiently for her to adjust. "The boy . . . Harold . . . is he . . . is he dead?" She dared to ask, holding her breath until she had the answer.

"No. I wouldn't say he's 'alright' His parents are dead, his brother dead, his whole village wiped out, not to mention the trauma he suffered . . . but he's alive." Fergus grimaced. "That's more than I can say for a lot of them."

Gwyneth sniffed, rubbing at her itchy face, only to wince at the tenderness of a bruise there. She had to look pretty awful, and she almost asked for a mirror, except right then, the queen didn't care to see her reflection. "How many? How many did we lose?"

"Ser Gilmore and Ser William are both dead, in honor, defending the king when we got separated." He looked away, taking a deep breath, shaking his head in resignation. "Of the others, I have four men left, the king has three."

"Seven? Maker!" Gwyneth could barely believe it. "So many . . . so many gone." There would have to be letters of condolences sent, and first thing, a warning given out and passed through the country with all haste. "We have to keep people away from there, tell them . . . I don't even know right now."

"Gwyn . . ." He paused, trying to find the words, feeling her intense stare on him, making it worse. "Noble . . . Noble is gone. There was no saving him from his injuries, he died before Alistair could make camp. He said he tried, but there was nothing to be done."

She screamed, a hand clamped over her mouth before she fell into her brother, fists curled against his chest, beating them there. "No! No, no, no! Please, not my baby, not my Noble!" Her throat tightened as she cried, heart broken and unable to do more than beg for the truth to be different, but it wasn't. "He tried to . . . he tried to save me! He died because of me!"

"No, Gwyn, he loved you. That mabari would have done anything for you, but its not your fault. Those things were . . . I've never come across something like that. We nearly all died. Noble was braver than most men that I know." Fergus consoled her, her body shaking with grief against his own, as he murmured into her hair. He would've rocked her, but his injuries made that impossible. The teyrn had never understood how his sister could love a dog more than she loved most people, but there was no doubt that she had.

"He . . . he was with me, the whole time, he got out of Highever with me, we made it through a Blight together. I . . I can't . . . I can't see how my baby is just gone now! He's just gone!" She hiccupped through her grief, hot tears making ruddy tracks down her bruised face. "I was holding him . . . I was . . . when we were in Greenfell, after that thing, that bitch fought him off. Do you think . . . he died when I was holding him?"

Fergus stroked her hair, kissing her temple as the other hand rubbed her back. "You can't think about things like that, pup, it'll only make it worse. He knew you loved him, and he loved you, and that's what matters."

She was taking gulping breaths, but she'd calmed down, her tears drying on Fergus' shirt. Gwyneth steadied herself, wiping at her face to try and sit up, small sobs hitching her chest until she had collected her senses. "Is . . . Is Noble still in Greenfell?"

"No, I brought him with us, we barely managed to get out of there, but I took the risk. I knew that you'd want to bury him. Ser Boughton wrapped him up in one of his own blankets." Alistair's voice came from the open tent flap, neither Cousland hearing him until he spoke. He dipped his head, almost looking shy as he caught Fergus' gaze. "I'm sorry to interrupt, I heard Gwyneth and wanted to check on her."

The teyrn looked to his sister, as she nodded mutely, he cleared his throat, getting to his feet. "Well, I'm going to get some water, speak with my men." He paused at the tent flap, turning his head a fraction of an inch. "And Alistair . . ."

Shocked by the familiarity of his name, the king only raised a brow, not sure what was coming.

"About Greenfell, getting us out of there . . ." Fergus took a deep breath, gratitude difficult for him. "Thank you, I owe you our lives."

Alistair gave a mute nod. "I'm only sorry more of us didn't make it."

Fergus rubbed his jaw, flinching before he left the tent. "So am I."

It was silent, even the sounds of scant activity outside didn't seem to reach the tent's interior. Alistair sat down in Fergus' vacated spot, grimacing at the soreness in his own legs, settling back until he was moderately comfortable. He watched Gwyneth, her back turned on him as she was slouched over, curls battened down under the bandage. She made an awful sight, but was far better to look at alive, than dead.

There was a surreal quality to that moment, sitting there and taking it all in, it was almost impossible to believe they'd ever gone to Greenfell, but they had. He cleared his throat, not sure what to say, but Gwyneth filled the breach.

"Fergus is right, we owe you our lives. You have my thanks as well . . . and for . . . and for bringing Noble back." She choked on the last words, taking a shuddering lungful of air, holding a hand to her ribs.

Alistair's voice was dim and sad. "Gwyn, I'm . . . I'm so sorry."

She sniffled, nodding and when he moved to sit behind her, she didn't protest his arms around her waist, face against her back. One of her own hands moved to curl over his knuckles. They sat like that for a good long while, before she spoke, her voice vibrating through her ribs, against Alistair's ear.

"We have to warn people away from there, before we do anything else."

He smiled, sitting up. "You get knocked around, and your mind's still sharp." But she was right and it was nothing to be pleased over. "I actually already wrote up a notice, once I knew you were in the clear. Have to thank Ser Boughton for that, field medicine is no replacement for having Wynne with us, but it saved your life, I think." When she only nodded, he went on. "Anyway, I'm going to have couriers send it out after copies are made, as soon as we hit the next village. I just . . . I don't even know what to call those things. 'Pale ladies' isn't really all that informative."

"I know what they are, at least, I think I know." She murmured, unable to see the surprise on her husband's face. "Aldous, I told you about him, he instructed Fergus and I. He used to have all these stories about the old gods, crazy stories, and I didn't think half of them were true . . . but, the way those things looked, and sounded . . ." Gwyneth closed her eyes, their awful image burned behind her lids, and the words that one had spoken, words that chilled Gwyneth down to her bones.

She tried to recall all that Aldous had said, pausing to gather her memories. "The Avaars believed that women had strong spirits, and when a woman died in suffering her spirit would return to Thedas, her wails of sorrow meant to warn others of befalling a similar fate."

Alistair blinked, a bit familiar with a similar story that he'd read during his studies as a Templar, reading about old religions was a means of learning how the Maker was supposedly so much better. "They sound creepy, but not dangerous, not like those things we encountered."

"Well, no, not at first, but Aldous said that when the Old Gods went to war against the Maker, some of them took human women as . . . as brides, to try and replenish their own kind. I don't know if it worked or not, but the Avaars warn that these 'brides' were sacrifices, that they died, maybe in childbirth? I have no idea. To be honest I was pretty sure it was bullshit." She snorted, wishing she still felt that way. "But when these women came back from death, the Old Gods had changed them, no longer making benevolent spirits of them, but these wailing women whose screams of agony upon their death were so severe that they could break a mortal into pieces. The few images I'd seen were worn, it was a pretty old tome, but, they looked a lot like those ghoulish things in Greenfell. It warned that only the Maker's song could stave them off."

Alistair wrinkled his brow, thinking of the Tenets of Faith, though that wasn't really a song. "The Maker's song? I don't . . ." Then it struck him, his mouth pulled up in realization. "Chantry bells."

"Chantry bells, indeed." Gwyneth nodded in affirmation. "You heard what young Harold said about how they didn't like ringing noises, and the way they killed people, the way they killed my . . ." She sniffled, trying not to think of Noble long enough that she could get through her own speech. "It sounds like the same thing. The old tribes called these creatures . . . banshees."

"Banshees? Maker's breath! I can't even . . . where did they come from? Why now? Why hasn't anyone seen them in such a long time?" Alistair ran a hand through his hair. "They can be killed, I know that, but only by cutting their head off. I don't even know if I should put that in a warning or just tell people to stay as far away from Greenfell as they can. The place is nothing but a graveyard now."

Gwyneth couldn't say anymore than that, unable to make herself talk about the words that awful thing had garbled at her. Things that hinted at what she had long been afraid of. Ever since that presence of terrible beauty had spoken to her in the Fade, golden eyes full of threats and promises.

There was no 'essence' preserved in the body of a child, there was no innocence given the power of an Old God growing in Morrigan's womb. The ritual performed on the eve before that last battle was a success, but not in the way Morrigan had planned, the way Alistair and Gwyneth had agreed to.

Urthemiel, the god Himself, was coming back, and neither the king or queen would be able to escape the consequences of what they'd done.