The Deep Roads are huge. They're built on dwarven scale, which means that they could fit an army in one room with room to spare, and they go up just as high, capped in tall, vaulted ceilings. Here, so close to Orzammar, the way is clear in terms of darkspawn, but there are places where the Roads have been blocked by rockfalls or other debris. When that happens, they have to find passages around. Most of those passages have been carved out of bare rock, or sometimes they're short tunnels connecting natural bubble formations.

Only once do they discover that Shale is too large for the opening between two sections. It solves that problem by punching out an extra two feet of doorway and just walking through.

Marian risks a glance at the roof of the tunnel, but nothing's cracking or falling or crushing them. Not yet. She sighs.

It's also eerily quiet down here. There's only their own footsteps, the rocks they disturb as they pass, the jingling of their gear. Marian has gotten used to the sounds of the road over the last few months. Up there, this sort of quiet usually means they're about to be ambushed. It's not helping her nerves.

Oghren leads them, and for now it seems he knows where he's going, so Marian leaves him to it.

The ceilings are high, it's true, but they're lower than they were in Orzammar. She feels hemmed in, claustrophobic; she wraps her arms around herself as they walk, like she can make herself smaller than she already is. It doesn't help. Shale's heavy footsteps behind her don't make her feel any better, either, since it makes her wonder exactly how the rockfalls were caused, and whether they ought to be watching where they step, or keeping their voices down.

They walk for most of a day before Oghren starts to pause at junctions. Marian resists the urge to ask him if he actually knows where he's going; it'll only irritate him. They're not backtracking or running into dead ends. Whatever he's doing, however he's helping himself to remember, it's working.

They make camp that night in a little alcove off to the side of the road, a little cave whose entrance they can partially block. Since Shale doesn't need to sleep, Marian asks it to keep watch so they can get as much rest as they're able; it agrees with a minimum of put-upon grumbling.

"We're going to have to refill the water skins tomorrow," she says, thinking of their provisions; they're each carrying a small and a large waterskin, but apparently people drink quite a lot more water than she'd realized.

Oghren shrugs. "Sure."

She waits, but that's all he says. "We'll be able to fill up somewhere?" she asks, when she can't stand the silence anymore.

"Uh-huh."

Marian gives up on him, and talking, and lies down nearish the fire with her head on Cú's back. He rumbles a little bit, but then he puts his head down and goes back to sleep, allowing Marian to use him as a pillow. Good dog.

She's surprisingly tired for doing nothing but walking all day. Drowsily, she watches Alistair across the campfire until she falls asleep.

Alistair shakes her awake the next morning – at least, she thinks it's morning. It's hard to tell down here, without the sun and the sky.

Marian wishes she hadn't slept in her armor. She gets up and stretches, rolling her shoulders and twisting side to side, trying to work out the stiffness. When she looks up, she catches Alistair watching her with interest, and if she's not mistaken, with want as well. She smiles at him, a knowing smile, one that makes his ears go red at the tips. She wants to go over, to kiss him, but... No. Not in front of Oghren. Instead she picks up her packs, and just like that, she's ready to go.

They leave the fire set and ready for the next travelers, and move on. A few hours pass before Oghren directs them off the road and behind an old, old rockfall. A small, well-used path has been worn into the stone.

Again, Shale doesn't fit. Marian stops it from clearing the path this time, fearing what disturbing such an old and well-settled rockslide might do.

The path isn't long. At the end, there's a small crack in the rock from which trickles a little water. It sheets down the rock face and collects into a pool at the bottom. Marian cups her hand and catches a little; it's clear and cool, and when she drinks it, it proves to be sweet, too.

She asks Oghren about it while they're filling their skins. "It's been here a long time," he says in his deep voice, though he doesn't sound particularly interested. "Longer than I've been alive, anyway. It happens sometimes. There's water in the rock, and it's got to go somewhere."

But how the water got there in the first place isn't something he was ever curious about, nor is he interested in telling her how he knows where they are. He is willing to tell her that there are more springs scattered throughout the Deep Roads. "Though not all of them are this nice," he says. "I hope you like the taste of lichen." He chuckles when her face drops.

At least they won't go wanting for water.

They travel for three more days in more or less a straight line. Once they have to take a long detour around a section of the Roads that caved in long ago due to darkspawn digging underneath to undermine the path. There's not always a neat alcove available when Oghren decides that it's time to stop, but there's usually something of a firepit, and a way to make it defensible.

Marian asks Oghren once how he knows when it's nighttime, and he looks at her like she has three heads. "Because it is nighttime," he says. "What, how do you – No, you know what? Nevermind." Then he stomps off muttering about surfacers, heading for the alcohol in his pack that he thinks she hasn't noticed yet. He doesn't think much of her questions, that much is sure.

On the fourth day, the darkspawn attack.

She's felt them since the first night, but in a vague, general way which means that they're not very close, according to Alistair. The feeling varies in strength, waxing and waning like the moon but never growing to that level at which they're immediately nearby. This is probably just something she's going to have to get used to down here, something else she hates but must get used to, like everything else down here.

She tries not to think about it too much.

But then it sneaks up on her; she gags a little before she can suppress the automatic reaction of her body. There's six or seven of them in a pack, three with crossbows, and one of the short, fat magic-users in the back. She's spread too thin to do more than cage him in a pain spell and hope that finishes him off; the others need healing, and she's got to keep something back for emergencies.

Oghren fights like a madman. He snarls at the darkspawn, hurling himself into the middle of everything and swinging his battleaxe, the one that's nearly taller than he is, in huge, vicious strokes that takes chunks out of whatever it hits, whether it be darkspawn or himself. Marian expects him to start frothing at the mouth next, like the old tales of berserkers from the mountains who'd go into blood rages and kill and kill until they ran out of strength or enemies to feed the rage. It's hard to tell when he's injured, too, when he's covered in darkspawn blood. Marian's used to Alistair now, and she knows when he's lagging and when he's injured; Shale is tough enough that Marian doesn't worry about her too much, but Oghren – She tosses healing spells his way when she gets the chance and hopes that's enough.

It's not a very tough fight, in the end, and the hardest part about it is that afterward, Oghren is literally covered in darkspawn blood. When Marian mentions it, he just shrugs and trudges on, though she catches him wiping his face clean with the trailing end of his beard when he thinks they're not looking.

It's another week to Caridin's Cross. Oghren's cheerful warning turns out to be true: not all the springs are so clear as the first. She's soon got an aftertaste in her mouth that doesn't seem to fade. Lichen is revolting. Their trail food isn't much better, but at least it's something. She has no idea what they'll do when it runs out.

The claustrophobia has not abated one bit.

Before her, Oghren slows and then stops, squinting at something she can't see above their heads. "Ah," he breathes. "Caridin's Cross! I can't believe they actually tracked this place down. This used to be one of the biggest crossroads in the empire." He looks around, awestruck at what Marian can only see as yet more of the Deep Roads, just like the rest. But she knows that this place has been lost to the darkspawn for many years. What might this have been, when the dwarven empire was at its height and trade roared between their far-flung cities?

So much was lost when the Blight came to Thedas. Marian hates every minute that she's down here and locked away from the open sky, but even she can admit that the Deep Roads are beautiful, made well and strong to last over thousands of years. They're worth reclaiming, if it could be done.

She regrets again that she needs the dwarven armies to beat back the Blight on the surface, only to drive the darkspawn back below ground... where the dwarves will go straight back to their daily warfare. There are no choices here, only hard truths.

This is a mental path that has worn itself into her thoughts in the last two weeks, and she's tired of it. "It's beautiful," she says out loud.

"You could get anywhere from here," Oghren says, still in that awestruck, slightly wistful voice. "Including Ortan Thaig."

Marian is relieved to hear it. "Then we're not lost?"

"Pfah," Oghren says, dismissing her concerns. "Course not." He looks back at that thing he was examining earlier. Trail marks? The dwarves of old must somehow have been able to tell the different parts of the Deep Roads apart. She'll ask him later. "Branka dug up some maps of the ancient empire. It's a little tough to tell with so much of it collapsed now, but near as I can figure we're on the right path to Ortan Thaig."

"All right, then. After you," she says.

Oghren laughs. "I've been waiting for someone to say that for two sodding years."

But they're ambushed before they can move on, by a couple of dwarves and another of those elven mages who can be so tricky. Do they hire themselves out in packs? Marian's seen more of them down here in the Deep Roads than up in the air, where they belong.

They're finished and healed and on their way quickly. Whoever sent them probably ought to have sent more. The dwarves have some provisions on them, thank the Maker; she stows them away for later.

Shale has found its voice again, though Marian is torn on whether that's a good thing or not; it begins to needle Oghren, making pointed observations on his personal habits and hygiene. She catches Alistair smothering a laugh more than once.

All right, it's not just Alistair. She's had to bite her lip, too. Shale has quite a way with words.

There's more darkspawn before they get to the crossroads, at first just a scattered few who are easy to kill if they're careful about which ones see them; but then a huge pack are suddenly there behind them, like they've risen up out of solid rock, and in all the distraction and fighting she doesn't notice that there are even more of them to the left until something punches her in her side.

She looks down. Suddenly there's a darkspawn arrow in her side where no arrow should be. It doesn't hurt yet; she feels numb instead. She knows it will start to hurt as soon as the shock wears off.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Alistair staggering and as if by instinct, she heals him and then freezes his opponent and knocks it into another darkspawn in a burst of spells that leaves her panting. The archers are clumped up, so that means she can use an area spell... as soon as she gets her breath back, that is. She watches herself going through the motions, instincts kicking in that she didn't even know she had.

The darkspawn are many, but none of them are very tough or powerful, and it doesn't take long to kill the rest. Alistair comes toward her as soon as he notices what's wrong, concern all over his face. Marian leans on him while she tells Shale to pull out the arrow. It helps, at least a little, to have him there while the pain screams through her. She feels that pain all day, even after she manages to focus enough of her mind to draw something from the Fade and heal herself; the lingering, phantom pain will stay with her for a while. She remembers that from Ostagar. Her simple healing spell does nothing for the mind.

And so, distracted as she is, she is completely unprepared for the ogre bearing down on them. It's had time to build up to speed, pushing itself across the cavern with powerful strides, tilting its head down to ram them with the massive, wicked horns that grow in absurdly graceful spirals several feet long.

Alistair and Shale break its charge with their bodies, and Oghren is there, bellowing defiance, all while Cú circles around to snap at its heels. Again the curious detachment kicks in, and her instincts take over: crushing prison, ice, stun... She looks around to check if anyone needs healing and when they don't, she turns her attention back to the ogre.

It's already dead.

Marian stares at it, not quite believing her eyes, but it doesn't move, no matter how long she watches.

It's hard to believe that it could be over that quickly. She remembers the ogre at Ostagar, and how easily and quickly it killed, and how much it took them to kill it. She looks around for Alistair, and finds him eyeing the ogre's corpse, as well. She sidles over and takes his hand.

It's only been a few months since Ostagar, but already that feels like a lifetime ago. She has trouble remembering who she was before that.

Marian lets Alistair tug her away. They have to be getting on. Oghren swears up and down that the main crossroads ought to be close.

Around every corner is something new: here is a huge animal with horns that Oghren calls a bronto, which Marian has to drag Cú away from eating; there a tall, thin, twisted, and impossibly fast darkspawn that Alistair calls a shriek, the darkspawn's version of an elf; then a darkspawn mage who uses some kind of paralysis spell on all of them in the middle of combat, leaving them helpless. Then there's another ogre around the corner with a pack of shrieks, and Oghren goes down, and it's all she can do to keep Shale in one piece...

Marian hates this, would much rather believe that they're prepared and capable of taking on anything down here. It might even be true. It... it just doesn't feel like that right now.

When they finally join back up with the Road they camp, and Marian does not have it in her to give a damn what Oghren thinks; instead she lays her roll out right next to Alistair's and dares anyone to say anything about it.

Late the next day, Oghren squints at what looks like just another part of the Deep Roads to her and says, deep satisfaction in his voice, "This looks like the right way out."

"Thank the Maker," Alistair says. Marian agrees. At least they're getting somewhere for their trouble. She hopes it's close; their food situation is never far from her mind, even if Oghren seems unconcerned. Marian is not quite sure he realizes how much she and Alistair eat. Cú is subsisting on the small, revolting lizards that Oghren calls tezpadam, deep stalkers. Luckily there's no shortage of those down here, but...

It's three days to Ortan Thaig. They come across darkspawn here and there, and once a group of dwarves who Oghren identifies as looters, but they see more rats than anything else. They can't let their guard down, though, and Marian can't relax, so she's exhausted every time they stop. Alistair is tired, too, though he's used to years of heavy marches in templar training camp, and Oghren is drunk off his head every time she looks, so she stops looking.

Shale watches them while they sleep, as always. It unnerves Alistair when Shale mentions counting his breaths. Marian thinks that's fair. She's a little unnerved, too.

Then one day, Oghren slows, examining the walls with great care. "Ha!" he crows, startling Cú a little. "I can see Branka all over this place. She always took chips from the walls at regular intervals when she was in a new tunnel – check their composition." He takes a few steps forward, looking around curiously. "By the tits of my ancestors, Ortan Thaig," Oghren says. He sounds as excited as he ever gets. "I never thought I'd see this place in the flesh."

"Do you think Branka might still be here, somewhere?" Marian asks.

"Nah. If she was still here, she'd have sentries out by now."

"So, what exactly are we looking for, then?" Alistair says, looking around. There's not much to see, honestly. It looks like every other section of the Deep Roads here. But now that Oghren's pointed it out, Marian can see the regular pockmarks in the wall, about every six feet or when the stone changes to bare rock.

"We'll follow her chips first," Marian says. "And then, if we must, we'll improvise."

"At least we're good at that," Alistair says, almost grumbling, but he moves when she pokes him in the side.

Marian convinces Oghren to tell her a little about dwarven history as they go, about which he knows more than she expected. There's darkspawn corpses, and then the spiders who killed them, and in all the confusion she doesn't pay Shale or Alistair a jot of attention until Shale starts in on him.

"It has become very close with the other Grey Warden."

The hair on the back of her neck stands up. Should she look? Or is it better to pretend she can't hear them? She wishes she were in Antiva right now, or wasted Anderfels. Anywhere would be better than here, listening to people talk about her like she's not within earshot.

"Er..." Alistair sounds startled. "Yes, I suppose I have, at that."

A pause; Marian finds it hard not to picture Shale eyeing Alistair much as it did when it inadvertently stepped in a pile of Cú's droppings. "I find this difficult to comprehend. It is whiny and weak and constantly laughing."

As if rubbing it in, Alistair laughs. "Then I guess a romance between you and I is completely out of the question, huh?"

"And the attempts at humor. I cannot understand how it is endured."

Marian loves that Alistair makes her laugh. She resolves to tell him so at the earliest opportunity.

"Well, maybe you should ask her why she likes me so much, instead of bothering me with it." He sounds a little grumpy now... Marian wonders if either of them will notice if she starts quietly moving away, down the tunnel. Like Leliana, she'll be silent smoke.

Shale grunts. It doesn't sound happy. Why it prompted this conversation, Marian has no idea. "It has a loud mouth," it says. "Why its head has not been crushed already is hard to imagine."

"Or maybe you just happen to figure she likes me a lot more than you."

"Don't be foolish," Shale grumbles.

Alistair laughs again. "Yes, I thought so. Just watch your step! Or I'm totally telling." He's good-humored again, now that he's got the upper hand. Marian can't help but peek at them over her shoulder; she'd meant only a quick glance, to watch Alistair laugh and nothing more, but he catches her looking and smiles...

He's damned distracting when he wants to be.

As for Shale, if looks could kill... "I am going to stand over here, now," it announces, and suits action to words.

Ortan Thaig is huge and heavy, carved whole out of an enormous cavern, straddling a rare underground river with thick, solid bridges. There are soaring natural rock formations that look like they're part of the city, instead of being removed or covered up. Everything is so old, and yet some of the houses look like they were only abandoned yesterday. Marian drifts toward a group of Paragon statues and regrets it immediately when spiders drop on her head.

There are spiders everywhere. Where there aren't spiders, or stone golems larger and less amusing than Shale, there are darkspawn, and once or twice something that Marian is afraid to call ghosts. She can't really wander the way she'd like to, to examine everything that catches at her curiosity.

But even Shale notices the wholly corporeal dwarf crouching over dead darkspawn, who gasps when he sees them, and flees down a tunnel carved into the bare rock. He turns a corner and disappears out of sight.

Marian takes an immediate step to follow, then hesitates, thinking better of it; it's probably safer not to go, honestly, but... She glances at Alistair, not for permission but just to check, and he nods.

She just wants to help. Sometimes they can.

The little dwarf comes back before they've taken more than three steps into the tunnel and spews anger and vileness at them. Oghren takes one look at him and the situation and sums him up immediately. "Word has it you can only survive down here by eating the darkspawn dead," he says, biting off his words like he doesn't enjoy the taste of them. "It brings the taint. Turns their brains to sewage, but it hides them from the darkspawn."

Oh no. Oh, no. But it's true that there's something off about him, about his posture and his speech, and the way that he watches her with wary, animal suspicion when he's not accusing her of stealing his treasures. She soothes him, her heart sick and pity choking her throat, and creeps a little closer to his fire. The black splotches are clear now, under his eyes and running down the side of his face and throat. His eyes are silvery. He's got the taint.

He calls himself Ruck. Marian remembers the name; she met his mother praying for his fate, back up in the world. She swallows.

The camp looks like Branka's, or so says Oghren. She asks Ruck about them, but all she can get out of him is something about the great crawler nest, the place with the eggs. She can't get anything more out of him than that. He doesn't want to talk about the darkspawn, or what he's doing down here, or how he survives. Nor does he want to talk about his mother; he cries at the thought of her, and begs Marian not to tell her what's happened, what he did.

She ought to take her little knife and put it through the base of his skull and put him out of his misery. He will be a darkspawn himself soon enough, and then she or some other Warden will have one more enemy to deal with. She's a Warden. This is her job. But it seems like the height of cruelty, adding insult to injury, to rob him of life when he's already lost everything that makes it worth living.

Marian leaves him here, in this nightmare he's made for himself.

Ortan Thaig offers up its secrets slowly, grudging every step they take. For all they've been fighting spiders for a week straight, now, when she needs them, they can't find a single one.

In unspoken agreement, they retreat quite a ways before the boundaries of Ortan Thaig to make camp for that night. No one wants to sleep near Rusk, not even Shale.

It's three days of cautious exploration before Cú barks and tears off toward the furthest edge of the thaig. Once she knows where to look, Marian can see the spinneret of one of the huge spiders before it whisks its way around a corner and out of sight. They give chase, running down a tunnel without heed for care or caution, but the spider's gone before they can catch up. Marian calls Cú back to her with a short, sharp whistle. This feels like a trap. Alistair catches the mood, too; he pushes his way in front, leading with his shield.

Oh, how she wishes they had someone who knew what a trap looked like. Leliana would be very welcome right now. Marian misses her.

But then there's nothing, not in the next five meters, nor in the next fifty. A couple of darkspawn try their luck, but they're easily done; it's not what she expected. Puzzlement grows in her mind as they keep following the cavern, and at every turn find nothing. They cross a bridge, and pass into another cave – Oghren confirms that they're well out of Ortan Thaig now – and this place is as empty as the first.

Alistair looks back at her, over his shoulder, and she shrugs. Maybe they're imagining things. Maybe the spiders ran because they've finally learned caution.

There's a space here, a round bit of cave like a giant with huge hands scooped the rock away long ago. There are webs, here, miles and miles of them in sticky clouds all over the walls and the ceiling; they stick to her boots and the butt of her staff, to Cú's paws, they're tangled in Oghren's beard and scraps float through the air currents to lunge at their faces. Hanging from the webs are clumps of huge, gravid egg sacs that drip in long strings from the ceiling.

"The nest?" Marian wonders out loud.

She regrets it instantly. Hissing echoes from every corner and three spiders drop from the ceiling, somehow hidden from sight in the webs until now. Two are normal – normal! Marian echoes with an insane giggle in her mind – but the third is bigger than any spider she's ever seen, even down here, larger than she is with a huge, rotund spinneret and painted with bright, deadly colors. It's poisonous, then. Lovely.

They kill the two normal spiders handily, but the biggest spider calls more before retreating into the webs swathing the walls. This has to be the nest. That makes it... the queen? It's hard not to think of it in those terms, not when it's hovering defensively in front of the egg sacs, using spitting poison attacks to keep them away.

Marian would almost feel bad if they weren't spiders.

It's not impossible to kill the queen while it's encasing them all in webs every time they turn around, but it seems that way. She's mobile, and her longer-ranged attacks are painful, but she's not actually physically hitting them all that hard. She must be used to having soldier spiders to defend her.

Marian feels an unexpected and wholly unwelcome burst of pity for it.

Oghren kills her in the end, a lucky strike that lodges his axe in her abdomen. They split up to search through a millennia of trash and treasures from all corners of the Deep Roads. The mummified bodies and pieces of bodies scattered around the cave ensure that Marian is very careful where she searches, and what she touches. There's no food, worse luck, but Marian does find the Ortan family records. Shale wanders here and there, less interested than the rest, but it's the one who finds another cache which contains Branka's journal. The journal directs them further down and further in, south of something called the Dead Trenches, which Oghren tells her is where the darkspawn nest.

Of course it is.

"South, then?" she says, checking with each of them for doubts; Shale doesn't care, and Oghren is raring to go, but Alistair grimaces at her. She knows what he's thinking. This is where Wardens go when it's their time. She doesn't want to go there either, not yet, and preferably not ever. And yet there is something of concern in his face, too, something just for her. She smiles at him, just a little turn of her mouth, but it seems to help.

They've gone beyond maps and Oghren's first- and second-hand knowledge; instead they're following marks in the dust and dirt and debris that litter the Deep Roads, hoping and praying that Branka's steady chip marks don't suddenly stop and leave them lost.

This place is eerily abandoned; there aren't even any darkspawn here. It's hard not to imagine that these are some of the darkspawn who have dug their way out of the Deep Roads to plague the rest of Thedas. But on the fourth day, they stumble across a little room whose entrance has been cunningly hidden in the rock. There's food, thank the Maker, and a little clean water, but there are dwarven weapons, too, and spare camping gear and dried herbs, the elfroot wrapped up carefully like it's spun gold.

"This must be a Legion outpost," Oghren says, surveying the room. "They're the only ones crazy enough to come down here."

They only take exactly what they need, but it's still more than Marian feels comfortable with; she leaves in its place some of her personal stock of elfroot and a few other herbs she keeps for emergencies, but it doesn't feel like enough.

They've been walking for days and days, and it feels like they're getting nowhere. The Deep Roads never change, but for the parts where the roof has fallen down or the darkspawn have knocked the walls or floor in. Even those are too similar. Everything blends together after long, long hours walking the Deep Roads. She'd be lost in a heartbeat, down here by herself.

She tries not to think about that.

Maker, it feels like years since she saw the sun. Or had a bath. Andraste's arsehole, she'd give anything for a bath. She stinks. She's almost gone nose-deaf, except that would be too much of a gift; instead she sometimes catches whiffs of herself when she's moving. The others aren't any better, of course, but at least Oghren came that way. And she's never worn her armor for so long in one go; it itches.

Knowing she's whining doesn't make her stop.

Several more days pass; she's long since stopped looking up or around, only checking every so often that they're still following Branka's trail. There haven't been any branches or crossroads, so they must still be on the right track. She's growing distracted and careless the longer they go without something happening or being attacked, and she knows that's not a good idea, but it's hard to bring herself to focus.

So she doesn't really notice when the Road starts to gradually broaden, the wall to her right retreating until there's a great empty space. It's the beginning of a vast cavern, the biggest she's seen yet, whose far wall is hidden in the shadows.

There's darkspawn there, somewhere. She can't see them, but she can feel them, pressing against her mind and sense of self, like they could eat her whole and leave her body a shell, waiting to be filled.

There are a lot of them.

Their path leads them to the bridge over the crevasse, but as they move closer, the sense of the darkspawn grows stronger, more rapidly than she expects, given where she thinks they are. That doesn't make any sense to her.

That's when she hears them. There's no mistaking their voices, that hissing menace, for anything else, but there are so many of them –

Quickly Marian goes to the very edge, crawling the last foot on shaking hands and knees, and looks down. It's not lava down there. The light is coming from hundreds of thousands of torches, held by darkspawn of every type and description, jam-packed as tight as they can get at the bottom of the crevasse. The crevasse fades into darkness in both directions, but she can see tiny torches stretching into the distance. They go for miles. It's impossible to estimate numbers. Even if she knew how to estimate forces in that way, she can't conceive of those kinds of numbers.

They've found the horde. She hadn't fully appreciated the meaning of the word horde before. It's a literal sea of darkspawn. No longer does she secretly wonder if they could have held out at Ostagar. Even if it had only been a fragment of these numbers – no. She feels sick with more than nausea. She's so afraid, not just of dying but of failure, of being unequal to this monumental task that's fallen into their lap. She shares an apprehensive glance with Alistair. They're expected to fight that? Their little armies seem very small, all of a sudden. But then, even if they had every man and woman in Ferelden, still she doesn't know if they could do what must be done.

Sometimes she catches herself tilting her head, trying to hear something that's just out of reach. She shakes her head, like she's trying to dislodge something, but it doesn't help.

Suddenly there's activity below, the torches moving with new and terrible purpose, and Marian blanches. If they've been seen, they're dead.

She throws herself backward when something leaps out of the crevasse on swift, silent wings; she crashes into Alistair and Cú, scrabbling away from the edge, because she feels it. She knows what this is.

The archdemon lands on the bridge and dwarfs it. It's huge, withered, pustulent black skin laid tight over malformed bones, but still, she knows it. It spoke to her at her Joining, it slithered its way into her dreams and it sings to her even now, calling the Blight in her blood to an all-encompassing, overwhelming purpose.

It breathes purple fire over the assembled horde and watches as it staggers into motion, marching away, down the crevasse to Maker knows where. The archdemon roars again, fire and triumph and an ever-seeking rage, and then it crouches and launches itself into the air and wings away into the darkness.

Only now can Marian breathe again. She discovers that she has a body that is hers, and it's still lying on top of Alistair. He's breathing heavily. She wonders if he'd felt what she felt, and if they'll ever, ever talk about any of it out loud. She could curl into him, just like this, and bury her face in his chest and never ever come out –

When Marian reaches her hand up, Shale picks Marian up so Alistair can get to his feet. "What was that bloody thing marching with them?" Oghren demands. For once, he looks almost young in his disbelief.

"The archdemon." Marian brushes herself off with more care than is strictly necessary, avoiding their eyes. She doesn't know how she feels yet, but she knows that she wants to feel it without scrutiny.

Alistair's crept back to the edge to watch the horde. "They're going," he says after a moment. "I don't think they noticed us."

"We must cross here, correct?" Shale asks. For once, it sounds unnerved. She's glad that it appreciates the seriousness of the situation, but right now she could use a joke. Or an unimpressed shrug. Or even something insane about pigeons.

"We wait until they pass. We can't risk it." Her voice comes out colder than she'd meant, but she can't summon the energy to care. Something inside her is frozen, her essential sense of self subdued and grey. And yet she has the sense that this feeling is a fragile shell on something huge and twisted and violently seething, something she has no idea how to deal with. If it shatters...

Alistair takes her hand. He's not looking at her. She studies their joined hands in a detached sort of way; underneath his gauntlets lie the same gloves as hers. His vambraces are two pieces, joined with tiny hinges. There are even tiny plates laid on his fingers. She doesn't feel any of that, though, only the slight warmth of his palm where it touches hers through two layers of leather.

They wait for what seems like hours; finally, finally, the last torches disappear into the distance, and they cross the bridge into the Dead Trenches.