All I can say is I am sooooo sorry I have taken so long to update, there was a lot of... stuff... happening in my life over the last year that kind of sucked the writing bug out of me. But I'm back and shall endeavor to update on a more regular basis rather than annually!

Thank you for those that still are sticking with this and hello to new readers! I don't have a beta, so mistakes are mine and unintentional, I do proof read my documents at least half a dozen times, but things that are you're own are so easily missed!

OoW


Chapter 53

Eve was on edge. Not because she was worried for Nathanial, though she was, but because she could constantly feel the darkspawn around her. The sickly thrum of them beyond the caverns they walked through, beneath her feet and, as they walked deeper in to the earth, above her.
It was the first time for a long time she'd been in the Deep Roads and she couldn't remember feeling like this before. Her skin crawled with the feeling of it all, like there were things under her flesh, slithering around.
She knew the others, particularly Fenris, could tell something was wrong. But she shrugged off their concerns; they needed to be worried about the dangers that surrounded them, not her.

It was the second night down in the thick gloom of abandoned dwarven built tunnels. Fluorescent lichen glowed like stars on the stone above them.
Eve had not slept at all not since... She couldn't even remember and the exhaustion of being surrounded by darkspawn, trying to concentrate on possible dangers around the corner and not how she could feel them all was wearing her down.
They had found a crevice in the rocks where there was only one way in, had the safety of solid stone at their backs and a low ceiling so nothing could be lurking above them.
Garrett had made a small fire, not for warmth or cooking, it was neither cold and they had food that needed no cooking, but because it was comforting, chasing away the darkness that was so thick around them.

Eve had decided to take the first watch and Varric and Garrett were already fast asleep, she had no idea how they had managed it. Maybe it was because they didn't understand the possible horrors that lurked around each corner. They had never seen a broodmother, the children, gollums, ghouls and dwarven ghosts of long abandoned thaigs. They hadn't been trapped in the darkspawn infested tunnels surrounding Orzammer, near lost in the twisting mazes, to realise if she didn't die in battle she'd eventually have to die down there, alone.
She let out a breath, she couldn't think about that now, she had to concentrate on keeping them all safe.
"You need to rest." Fenris suddenly spoke quietly from beside her. He had not left her side since they'd been here. She hated having to tell him about what happened to women in the Deep Roads, but if she couldn't end her life if it all went to the Void, she knew she could rely on him to do it for her.
"I'm fine. I said I'd take first watch." She told him.
"I am quite capable of doing that myself. You are exhausted. When did you last sleep?"
"A few days ago." She shrugged avoiding his knowing gaze.
He rose an eyebrow, she supposed he was right not to believe her. "Okay, I don't remember." She admitted.
"You must sleep."
"I can't. I can feel them around me. My nightmares will be awful down here. They were when I first became a Warden, let alone now." She shuddered and then felt Fenris move closer to her.
"You don't need to sleep then, but you do need to rest. Here," without further words he moved behind her so she sat between his legs, then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to lean against his chest. There were layers of armour between them, Fenris's spiked pauldrons pulled her hair a little, but it was comfortable, warm, especially with one of his arms laying over hers, his fingers grasping hers, and his other hand running soothingly over her head.
"You don't have to do this." She told him. "I don't need to be comforted." Though she couldn't deny how good it felt.
"I want to." He replied, not stopping the rhythm of his fingers over the crown of her head.
"What if we're attacked by darkspawn?" She tried to argue.
"You are only resting remember? Besides, those creatures are not exactly silent enough to creep up on us."
"Mmm, I suppose so." She finally relented as she closed her eyes, relaxing in to Fenris's embrace, concentrating on everything but the incessant vibration of darkspawn, thankfully drowned out somewhat by the feeling of safety she felt with Fenris. She hadn't felt like that for so long, to know someone was looking out for her no matter what, and not feeling weakened by it. She only wished they hadn't wasted so much bloody time running away from their feelings and second guessing what the other felt.

Eve felt herself drifting away, everything fading to nothing, even the darkspawn, until there was just emptiness.
Then she heard something in the distance, a whisper of movement in the darkness, the sound of wet flesh slithering towards her. She tried to move away from it but she was rooted to the spot. Suddenly something warm and smooth touched the skin of her ankle, her heart started to race with fear, her breathing coming short and fast.
The thing, a tentacle she guessed, curled its way up her leg, smooth and slimy. She felt another curl around her right wrist, sliding across her naked skin. Eve tried to scream, but she couldn't make a sound, terror choked her in to silence.
Another tentacle wrapped around her other leg, another round her other arm, snaking over her breasts, her waist, up between her legs, pulling her upwards, high in to the suffocating blackness.
'Come to us.' Thousands upon thousands of voices rang out from beyond her vision. 'Join us where blood calls to blood.' They invited her. 'We are one mind in a million bodies.' She was not alone. She could feel them all. She was part of something greater. 'We search, we tunnel, we find, we rise. An army to swallow the world. The God, Razikale, he calls to us. He wants to be found from his place deep within the earth.' Yes. She could hear him, somewhere, distantly, a hauntingly beautiful sound that made her soul ache, that made her want to weep. 'Join us and you will help us breed an army.'
A ghoulish face roared suddenly in to Eve's vision, skin pale and puckered, threaded with black veins of corruption, acid and blood spewing from between rotted teeth, screaming at her. Over and over and over.

Eve woke up with a jolt, sweat beading on her forehead, her body trembling.
"Eve?" Fenris asked with worry, still seated behind her, his arms around her. She pushed him off roughly, scrabbling away, bile burning her throat, as she darted out of the fissure of rock they were camped in, to fall on her knees heaving and choking on the contents of her stomach that she purged on to the floor.
She had heard them, the darkspawn, all speaking to her with one mind, urging her to join them, to help them, and fuck, how she had wanted to, wanted to hear that beautiful song of the dragon they searched for relentlessly. The realisation of what she was becoming even more apparent down in these depths. The horror of it sickening her.
She felt a cool hand rest upon the back of her neck as she continued to cough violently with the terror she felt clawing at her very soul, fingers pulling back the hair from her face.
"Eve?" Fenris spoke low, fear lacing his voice.
"I said I didn't want to fall asleep." She managed to say, anger that she'd allowed herself to do such a thing, anger that he had let her, making her voice tremble. Better anger than fear. "Didn't I tell you it would be bad down here if I slept!" She clenched her eyes shut at the disgust she felt within her changing self. How she wanted to hear that song again. She began to get up shakily from the floor, feeling like a stupid little girl, as if it was her first time in the Deep Roads all over again. "I just want to find Nathanial and get out of this place. The sooner the better." She avoided Fenris' gaze as she returned to the camp.
"Don't shut me out." He said, halting her. "Talk to me."
"I can't." She replied, her voice strained.
"You can." He moved in front of her. "I have never seen you like this before."
"I can hear..." She managed to say, her voice aquiver with fear. "Down here, asleep, I can hear them clearly. The darkspawn, thousands of voices speaking to me at once. I can hear the call of the Old God they search for. It's a song that urges me to find him. To be like them."
Fenris reached out to her, cupping the scarred side of her face. "You are strong enough to resist it."
She looked in to those reassuring green eyes. "I am. As long as I don't sleep. Don't let me sleep."
"I won't. We shall move out soon, find your fellow Warden and be gone from this evil place."
She nodded. She wanted to find Nathanial, safe and well, but she also wanted to be far away from the Deep Roads, to breathe the fresh air, to feel the sun on her skin, to not have to endure the darkspawn.
"Lets wake the other two, maybe the closer we get to the primeval Thaig the more likely I'll be to feel Nathanial." As long as he was still alive. Fenris nodded in agreement.

It was seven hours trekking through tunnels, slaughtering small groups of weak darkspawn, a few large spiders before she felt that familiar taint of Nathanial in the distance.
"This is the Thaig we found." Garrett spoke out as they walked through the ancient stone structure, walls threaded with red and blue lyrium veins, casting the walkways and rooms in an eery light. "It's hard to forget."
"You think this Howe fella is close to here, Deadly?" Varric asked, Bianca loaded and ready.
"Yes. Darkspawn too." Eve replied. "Be on your guard." She could hear grunts of the creatures in the distance, could feel there were around a dozen, plus Nathanial. She couldn't feel any other Wardens though and that was not a good sign.

She led them through a room and then she saw Nathanial, his back to her, loosing arrow after arrow with quick precision, but he was fast becoming overwhelmed.
She ran towards those closest to him, spearing one on her sword as it squealed in death. She kicked it off her blade and sliced another in half through its midsection, the stench of fetid blood and corrupted flesh filling the air around her.
She saw a flash of lyrium white light out the corner of her eye and fought the urge to tell Fenris to get back and out of reach and just hoped nothing would happen to him.

When the last darkspawn had been slain Eve turned to see Nathanial, who was staring at her intently. That same dark look in his eyes he'd had when she'd confronted him in Vigils Keep cells, when he'd wanted her dead.
She approached him carefully.
"Commander? Eve? Is that you?" He asked stepping towards her. He'd aged only a little, he still appeared much the same, large, but not un-handsome nose, mouth always curved in disdain, heavy brows, eyes only a shade darker than hers, and thick black hair to his shoulders.
"It is." She replied, stopping just out of arms reach from him.
"But you're dead. Your body was found in Antiva, burned." He reasoned.
"It was a... necessary lie. I can explain later,"
"There is no need. I found your personal papers." He interrupted her harshly.
"What?"
"Letters from Weishauppt, asking why you weren't dead, because, apparently, you're supposed to die when you kill an Archdemon, aren't you?" He accused.
"Yes." She glared at him.
"And letters from the King, unopened letters, telling you the First Warden had been writing to him, wanted to know what had occurred during the Blight to ensure your survival. He wrote some very interesting things,"
"Not here, Nathanial!" She snapped at him. "I'll tell you what you want to know later. When we're alone." She saw Fenris scowl unhappily in her direction at her words. "First, tell me why in the Void you're here?" She demanded. It was surprisingly easy to fall back in to her role as Commander.
"If there is a later I will enjoy hearing an explanation." Nathanial replied. "But, fine. Why am here? Because the First Warden asked me to investigate this place. Offered me a share of whatever we salvaged and extra coin to deter any others that were interested in this Thaig."
"You're here for money?" Eve asked in disbelief.
"Yes, money. Grey Wardens don't live on fresh air, I should know, you made me Commander in your stead. We can't fight darkspawn if we don't have the money for armour and weapons, and our numbers would quickly deplete if the Wardens were not given a decent stipend to live on."
"There are better ways than coming to Primeval Thaigs buried deeper than any of us have ventured before." She told him.
"Not according to the First Warden there aren't. Perhaps he was hoping we'd find... something else." He offered vaguely. A bloody idol was that it? The one that had turned Batrand in to betraying Varric, cost Carver his life, costing Bartrand's own life in the end. Yes, she'd heard all about that thing. What on Thedas did the First Warden want with something like that?
"How did you find this place?" Garrett spoke up. "I didn't give anyone directions or draw a map."
Nathianial seemed to realise then that there others in front of him and not just Eve. "You're the one they call the Champion of Kirkwall aren't you? Tales of you reach even us Grey Wardens." He said.
"That's me." Garrett replied, but his tone was more resigned than boastful. "So, how did you find this place?"
"A dwarf by the name of Bartrand gave us the information."
"My sorry excuse for a brother?" Varric spoke up.
"We didn't think it was safe to ask the Champion or you," Nathanial looked at the dwarf, "in case the two of you decided to make your way back down here."
"Yet you trusted that lying sack of shit who locked us down here to die for a bigger share of the treasure?" Varric continued. "That sounds kinda bloody stupid to me."
"Hmm, he left that part out." Nathanial replied. "Though that hardly matters now, does it?"
"Not unless the dead give a shit about treasure and Thaigs." Varric mumbled.
"At least your sister will be pleased to hear you're alive." Garrett said. "She's the reason we're here after all."
Nathanial turned to Eve. "Delilah has been looking for me? You came down here to look for me?" He appeared confused.
"Why wouldn't I? You were one of my Wardens." She told him.
"One of your... Wardens? Yes. I was." He turned away. She could hear the bitterness in his tone. Was this because they'd fucked a few times and she'd left and faked her death without a proper goodbye? "Anyway, I'm not the only one down here. I got separated from the others when we were ambushed by the darkspawn. I have to go back for them."
"Were Oghren or Sigrun with you? Are they still... alive?" She asked.
"Do you really care?" Nathanial asked her spitefully. "You were dead to them a long time ago, dead to me. Don't pretend you suddenly give a damn about us."
"I always cared, I didn't show it very well, but I did. You don't understand the reasons as to why I left but I promise I'll tell you when we're out of here, just tell me if they're alright, Nathanial!" She demanded.
"Fine. I apologise for my tone, it is just a bit of a shock to find you alive after all this time." He told her, sighing. "Oghren lost an arm a couple of years back. Your death hit him really hard though, but he still fights as good as he ever did. Sigrun is fine. Has herself a nice dwarven fellow we recruited a couple of years back, Brosca, they knew each other growing up in Dust Town. Neither of them came with me. I couldn't leave Vigils Keep without two of our most Senior Wardens."
Eve sighed in relief, glad they were safe in Amaranthine, alive. "Let's go find the rest of the Wardens. I can feel a lot of darkspawn near here." She told them walking on.
"Your sense for darkspawn was always better than mine." Nathanial told her. She couldn't tell him it was because she was far more tainted than him.