My thanks to everyone who reads, lurks, and alerts this story. Especially to Wyl, who has provided such wonderful and thoughtful reviews.

The Halla Tainted

Chapter 9

They continued to make their way through the forest, the ever changing trails and paths leading them to high cliffs or tangled roots and underbrush and, once, a raging river, swollen with the spring melt. Growling, Adaia would change their course, seeking another path, and yet they always found their progress hindered.

Darkness would envelope the pair, dancing shadows flitting between the trees as the nighttime creatures cried out to one another. And, still, the pair would find themselves landlocked once again, their path blocked, pushing them toward another direction.

At one point Adaia had stopped their progress - a relative term in this case - and began to set up camp, ignoring Duncan's questioning stare as he, too, set up their small campsite for the eve.

"I thought we had the Forest's permission," the elf finally muttered as the pair sat before the fire, three days since their encounter with the strange wolves.

A thoughtful and questioning frown formed between his brow, and Duncan asked, "Why would you think that?"

Steely blue eyes fixed upon his dark face, but he knew that her ire and impatience was not directed at him. He almost - almost - risked a smile, but decided it would be far wiser to just not.

"Those wolves let us pass," she reminded the young human, tossing a stick into the flames as they waited for the stew to simmer. "Did you not notice how unnatural they seemed?"

The young warden blinked, frowning slightly. "You really have to forgive me, Adaia," he drawled out. "I really don't have much experience in the wilderness. Show me a wolf in a city, now, I can point out the unnaturalness of that. But, here," he waved a hand to encompass the surrounding trees and plants. "I've not a clue."

Adaia scowled at her companion for many moments. "You do have a strange sense of humor, Duncan," she finally acknowledged, slumping back against the log. "You have the great misfortune of reminding me of the Whimpering Fool." Her eyes narrowed at him slightly, and Duncan was mortified to feel a hot flush creep up his neck. "Careful whom you try to emulate." The Dalish woman warned, but there was a play at the corners of her mouth, and Duncan was certain - absolutely certain - that the woman was poking fun at him.

Smirking, realizing he had free reign to do so, the young Warden tilted his head forward in a mock bow. "I merely endeavor to please, my lady."

Snorting in a most unladylike fashion, Adaia shook her head, giving their supper a stir in the pot. As she ladled some into a bowl and handed it off to Duncan, she remarked, "I am certain you say that to all of ladies."

His hand extended to grasp the bowl, Duncan almost lost his grip as the almost playful - and dare he think it, flirtatious - comment purred from Adaia. He risked a glance over, to find her watching him, a twinkle in her eye and small smile upon her lips. Giving out a sigh of exasperation, the young man firmed his hold on his bowl, and pulled it to him. "You know, you are evil." He quipped out, relishing the playful side of his companion, a side he had not seen and had not thought to see.

Her answer was a graceful shrug of her shoulders as she ladled out stew for herself. She chewed her food thoughtfully, her expression turning solemn as her eyes scanned the tangled wilds around them. Her voice was soft as she broke the silence.

"I know I am difficult to get along with at times," she admitted, and Duncan found himself yet again surprised by his astonishing companion. She turned her eyes to him, and they were still that steely blue. "I have met few humans I could call comrade; fewer still who are friends. You are a good man, Duncan. I can see that."

"Why do I sense a 'but' in there?" the young man teased back.

A slight nod of her head answered that comment. "You are still human. I have lived long enough among your kind to know that, as with the Dalish, there are good humans, bad humans, and those who are merely disinterested beyond their own noses," her eyes hardened slightly then. "I will always watch you, Duncan. Merely for the fact that you are human, and that wall of distrust I built around myself helped me to protect myself and my people. It is a difficult structure to try and unbuild after all these years." She gave him a pointed look. "My people have suffered much at the hands of humans, and it takes a very long time for that knowledge and suffering to melt away into understanding."

"At least you say 'human' instead of 'shem'." the young man found himself saying before he actually put thought into it, and he winced as he anticipated the onslaught of verbal abuse he would soon suffer for such a comment.

Instead of reacting with anger, as he was certain she would, she merely inclined her head, her eyes still sharp and hard, gray penetrating the blue. "I take into account my current companionship," she said softly, eyes narrowing slightly, as though she awaited another thoughtless quip from the young human.

This time, however, Duncan held his tongue and wisely spooned more food into his mouth before he could say anything further to upset his companion.

The rest of the evening passed by in relative silence, save for the nocturnal woodland creatures calling to one another in the distance.

0O0

The sun was high in the noonday sky when they entered what could only in the most generous means be called a clearing. Duncan stopped between the sparse trees, his dark eyes scanning the horizon, moving down and following the tree lines to the ground. Adaia had moved away from him, moving with purpose, as she stepped toward the crumbling stone wall hidden within underbrush and saplings.

The young human watched as the Dalish hunter knelt, her lithe form leaning forward to push and pull the brush from the wall. He frowned slightly, shaking his head, not believing that this was the place they were directed to by Marethari.

After all, the only structure he could see was the low, crumbling wall, swallowed up by weeds, undergrowth, and tangled saplings. Wasn't there supposed to be an actual ruins?

So he stood, watching as the elf wasted her time digging through the growth, and he felt an impatience overcome him as her ministrations continued.

"Shouldn't we just go look…" he pointed toward the east, "elsewhere." His voice contained his impatience, and the answering smirk the elven woman gave him offered him no reassurance that she took anything he said seriously.

Many more minutes passed and Duncan, exasperated and impatient, trudged to the elf's side, glaring down at her sunny blond head.

As his shadow passed over her, Adaia stopped, her hands to her knees, and deep sigh erupting from her. Lifting her face to peer into Duncan's scowling features, her blue eyes twinkled as she grinned.

"When I compared you to Maric," she said in a calm voice. "I really should have thought more carefully."

That comment caused the young man's brow to raise ever so slightly. "Oh?"

"Yes," she nodded as she returned to her work. "I should have compared you to Loghain."

Snorting, the young Warden continued to scowl as Adaia gave one of her rare - and musical - laughs. "Yes, indeed," she muttered as she continued to pull the growth free of the wall, revealing more of the low, crumbling structure. "Just like Loghain. No patience."

"I thought King Maric was impatient," the Warden countered, folding his arms across his chest.

"Yes, but his impatience usually displayed itself as merely childish," she stopped to grin back up. "Rather like a child prodding a parent." Her voice raised an octave and she replied in a sing-song manner, "'Are we there yet?'"

She grinned as she continued in her normal tones. "Loghain would scowl darkly. Glower and loom over you until either you lost patience and stalked away or confronted the man," she pointed at the young man's dark face. "Rather like you are doing now and rather like I am trying very hard not to do." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "I am certain you will be surprised to learn that I always confronted the man."

That comment made the young man relax, taking her warning at face value, he forced his facial muscles to relax, to relinquish that marring expression.

"Besides," Adaia continued, rising to dust off her knees and clap the dirt from her hands, "I believe we have found the ruins Marethari directed us to."

Dark eyes narrowed as they reevaluated their surroundings. "How can you be sure?" he asked after a moment. Turning to look into the woman's face, he continued. "We've gotten so turned around, how do we even know that we're in the eastern part of the forest?"

Grinning, Adaia shrugged her shoulders. "It is not the trails we follow, Duncan, but the sun and the stars." She gestured upwards toward the great glowing orb in the sky. "Trails and paths can overgrow; landmarks change; trees mature and die, the very land itself can warp and change, rise and fall. However, the stars and sun, even the moon, are ever constant. It is by them that we make our way in the world."

Duncan's response was to sputter, and Adaia tittered out another chuckle. "Trust me, Duncan." She turned to face him, still smiling. "You and your Order asked for my help. This," she gestured toward the wall and the small tunnel she had begun through the underbrush. "is why."

Near black eyes fixed upon the blues of the elven woman. The young man did not want to continue arguing. They had asked the Dalish woman for her help because she could guide him through the wilderness of Ferelden. Far better than any scout available.

He also did not want to ruin her good humor. Days after leaving her clan, she had been rather melancholy and sorrowful, her normal short temper made even shorter. She had not spoken of her distress, but Duncan had seen it clearly upon her face.

The further from her clan, the calmer her moods. As they continued their travels deeper into the forest, the young man believed that he was seeing a side of Adaia that few - save perhaps Loghain, Maric, Rowan and her husband - ever saw: she was almost girlish in her enthusiasm to continue with this adventure.

So, he decided to merely shrug and bend down, pushing back his own ill humor, to examine the small clearing she had made through the tangled underbrush.

What he had taken for as a simple stone wall was actually of marble. That was his first surprise. The closer he pushed himself through the brush, the more he realized that the wall descended deeper into the earth, extending out and away from where he knelt, turning at graceful angles to encompass the clearing they stood within. Intrigued, he dug in deeper, noting the carved columns that rose, twisted and broken, unforgotten for millennia, just mere yards from where he crouched.

Carefully, he backed from the hole, rising to face the smirking face of his companion.

"How…?" he began, his eyes going back to the tunnel of undergrowth he had just emerged from.

"We Dalish have been traveling these Forests for centuries," the woman replied, her smirk softening to a smile. "Trees grow and die, life ceases, and starts anew. Such is the way of the wilds. You just need to know how to look for that which has passed on."

"You're being cryptic on purpose," the young man accused, and Adaia laughed again, nodding.

"Well, of course. Aren't we Dalish supposed to have near magical knowledge of the wilderness trails? Do we not simply speak with the animals to find our way through the tangled forest?" Her laughter was infectious, and Duncan found himself chuckling along with her.

"As I said earlier, I merely took the coordinates from the map, added my own understanding of just how old these ruins may well be, and followed the stars and sun."

"And I thought you were being stubborn," the man griped, shaking his head.

"I can be," the elf agreed, still smiling as she turned and knelt before the entryway they had both dug into. "I knew it would be here." She tilted her head back toward the young man. "And I stand firm in my earlier belief that the wolves we encountered wanted us to find it."

"What makes you so certain?"

There was a delicate shrug of her shoulders, her eyes raising from the tunnel to follow along the tree line, her eyes soft.

"I am uncertain exactly, Duncan." She lifted her eyes to his. "There was an intelligence to them, almost as though, by their not pressing the battle but backing away, they were giving us their permission to venture further into the Forest." There was another shrug as she sighed, turning her attention back to the tunnel. "We have been unhampered since our encountering them. And that, I can assure you, is quite unusual."

That thought did not ease his concerns as he was certain Adaia had meant it to. "You sure?"

"No,' the elf shook her head, pulling her pack from her shoulders as she dug in more firmly into the undergrowth. "However, there were times, as we encountered one obstacle or another, that I felt as though we were being herded, pushed in a direction, the incorrect path being cut off to us."

"Isn't that taking the whole haunted forest legends a bit too far?"

Blue eyes fixed upon his face, and again, Duncan felt that flush warm up the back of his neck, to the tips of his ears. That this woman could so easily fluster him with a mere look from those eyes…

"I do know that we are at the ruins." Came Adaia's calm, reasonable response.

"But, if Rikhard had already been here, wouldn't there already be an entrance?'

She shook her head, gesturing to the undergrowth. "How powerful a mage was he?"

Now it was Duncan who shrugged. "I'm…not entirely certain. He must be fairly powerful, to escape the wardens as he has been."

Gesturing slightly with a long fingered, elegantly calloused hand, Adaia said, "Take a look at this brush." Duncan moved closer, bending over her shoulder, careful of her bow, so close he could smell the elfroot and sweetfern in her hair. "What do you see?" she asked, shifting slightly to allow him a better view, her eyes fixed upon him, a calm expression upon her face.

His face twisted slightly as he grimaced and shook his head. "Ah, grass…weeds…crumbling rock wall…dirt," he frowned into her face. "What do I see?"

An exaggerated patient shake of her head and smile met his question. "Do you see anything different between this undergrowth and that along the rest of this perimeter?" Her voice was soft, patient, as she gestured to the flora.

No…he had started to say, but then paused, his eyes sweeping along the perimeter of the wall, working his eyes back to where they currently knelt. Tracing the line of plant life that encompassed the small clearing, he noted that, where they stood, the flora appeared…

"Younger?" he questioned, his brow twisting in confusion. "It's greener," he moved away from the elf, pressing his hand into the undergrowth, pulling forth tender, green sprigs of milkweed, fresh young lambs ears scattered beneath. Further away, the milkweed stalks were dark green to brown, the fuzz atop each stalk heavy with pink and purple flowers, and heavy weeds and grasses enveloped any lambs ears growing in that direction.

"Your mage, somehow, knows Keeper magic," she gestured to the new growth and then toward the older Duncan had just indicated. "How? I have no idea…" she tapped her chin thoughtfully with one long finger. "I guess that is another question to ask your renegade Warden once we find him."

Duncan nodded, turning away from the elf for a moment as his dark eyes, once again, scanned the area surrounding them. He knew that Rikhard was long gone, but that small part of him needed to look over the area again. There was that feeling, just between his shoulder blades, that gave him the chilling knowledge that, whether his fellow Warden or not, the two of them were being watched.

Knowing there was nothing he could do about it at this time, realizing just how short their time to seek out and locate Rikhard was becoming, Duncan turned back to his companion, and offered her a hand as she continued to dig, pull and push her way through the thick underbrush, seeking out the entrance to the ruins she was now certain lay just ahead of them.

0O0

Evening arrived, a comforting blanket of blackness, dotted by shimmering pinpoints of the stars above. The fire crackled along in the pit, the sounds and smells of cooking rabbit permeating the air.

The pair had managed to clear a great deal of the growth from the ruins wall, exposing a great expanse of the marble creation. The darkness had come too soon, however, and the pair had to abandon their quest to gain entrance that day. With luck, they would manage to clear more in the morning, and expose an entrance into the ruins.

For now, the pair sat, quietly listening as the nighttime wilderness came alive. Birds cooed to each other from a distance, while the yips of fox and wolf echoed along the outer perimeter of their camp. Some very close, others a great distance. But none ventured into their sanctuary.

It was almost as though none of the natural inhabitants of the Forest would dare enter the clearing the two had claimed.

As their meal cooked, Duncan lounged against the log he had pulled free from their excavation site, his hands clasped behind his head as he watched Adaia poke at the rabbits upon the spit.

"Can we talk?" the young man asked of his companion after several moments, watching as a quizzical expression crossed the woman's expressive face.

"During our time together, Duncan," she said as she settled back upon the stump she sat upon, giving the spit a turn as the grease sputtered and spat from their meal. "I have never known you not to talk."

Grinning, he straightened, his hands coming from behind his head, resting his arms upon the log. "You are funny, do you know that?" he teased, watching for any sign that he had gone too far.

Her expression remained a simple mask of friendliness, but nothing further. With a sigh, the man continued.

"Why did you decide to come along and help me?" he asked after another moment.

With a sigh, Adaia settled back, bringing the cooking fork to her lap as she turned her eyes back to the human. "Does it matter?" she asked after a moment.

"A question for a question?" Duncan quipped, shaking his head. "It doesn't really matter. I'm just curious." He tilted his dark head, feeling the lengthening growth of his hair brush against the back of his neck, and he briefly wondered if he could convince Adaia to give it a cut. "You weren't very thrilled with the idea when we first met at your home."

She frowned slightly at the man, poking again at the rabbit. "I was not thrilled," she admitted, turning the spit again. "My main purpose, after all, is the care of my family, and protection of the Alienage." Her head tilted slightly as she turned her gaze upon Duncan. "The elves who dwell in the city are more victim than not. Sometimes, I think that it is only my blade and bow that keeps the predators at bay."

The young human could only nod at that. He knew well how poorly treated elves were. His thoughts momentarily went to another elven woman he had come to care for, wondering how she was doing now, what she was doing, if she shared any regrets…

"I know," he said softly, his introspective gaze once more focusing on the external. "Yet, you still agreed…"

"I was convinced," she said shortly, frowning. "Two people I value above others convinced me that this was for the best."

"Cyrion,' Duncan responded knowingly.

Nodding, Adaia replied, "Yes. My husband felt that it was important to Ferelden, to the Grey Wardens, perhaps even to my people. After all, you did make it sound so ominous." She offered a small smile, one without mirth however. Her voice lowered and deeper, she drawled out. "A dark evil in the wilds." She gave the spit another turn. "Really?"

Duncan shrugged. "Well, it is possible that Rikhard's intentions are evil." He defended himself, feeling more than a bit sheepish as he recollected that particular conversation.

"Ah hah," was the elf's reply. Duncan was relieved, however, that she did not seem angry over his…overstated description of the matter at hand.

"And the other?" Adaia turned and looked at the young man questioningly. Duncan continued. "You said two…"

Nodding, "The second would be Loghain," her eyes turned back to their food, and she gave it a poke, grease spurting from the puncture. "He asked. I know that he would not have if he had not felt it was important." She smiled slightly, a little sad. "I will owe my friend an apology," she twisted to look at her bow, "and a bow when I return."

That raised a brow and Duncan could not contain his curiosity. "Oh?"

"I was…rather short with him as we…discussed my going along with you."

"You? Short?" Duncan asked, laughing.

Adaia's blue eyes narrowed slightly, her soft smile vanishing. "Hmmm…I suppose I do deserve that. Somewhat," she raised a finger to the young man disapprovingly. "But were I you, I would not take advantage of my good humor."

Warning taken, Duncan bowed his head to the elven woman, his eyes going to their meal. "Are those ready yet?" he asked, a rumbling in his belly telling him that they had better be.

Chuckling, Adaia nodded, pulling free one of the rabbits, sliding it onto a plate. "You and your appetite." As she handed it to him, she offered him a small smile. "This was difficult for me, you realize," she admitted as she turned back to pull the other free for her own dinner. "I left behind my heart, Duncan. My child…my husband…the elves," she sighed slightly, her eyes raised to stare into the darkness. "I worry how they will be if I am not there."

"You take too much onto yourself," the young man, who really did not know her well enough, made the presumptuous remark around a mouthful of meat. He stopped chewing, certain that he had just invited her temper to make an appearance.

Surprisingly, Adaia did not take offense, but merely nodded. "I know how things in the Alienage were before I arrived. I know that there are humans within Denerim who prefer to keep elves under their boot heel." She looked up at the man before resuming her meal. "Many who will never allow my people their proper place in the world."

"For what it's worth," Duncan said and Adaia turned to watch him. "I am sorry."

She remained silent, and Duncan felt that same, prodding guilt come over him again. Since he had joined the Wardens - been forced into their ranks - he had been asked to keep secrets that he would prefer not to. He had been ordered to perform acts he would never have conceived of in his days as a rogue on the streets of Val Royeaux. Pulling a woman from her family, her home, her people…he felt guilty. And wondered if there had been another means for pursuing this matter, without the need to bring another from the outside in.

However, he had his orders, his instructions…this was his life now. As he ate, the succulent meat now dry as dust in his mouth, he wondered what more the Order would ask of him to give.

How much more would his conscience need to bear before his Calling would be upon him?