Vex wasn't the best with directions, but she was pretty sure that the Tevinter border wasn't far off now. How long had they been riding, she wondered. Kieran rode several feet in front of her, mounted on a brown hart which Vex assumed was one of the ones her father had gifted to the Couslands a few years back. He has been mostly silent for the ride, yet at times she could swear she heard him bickering with himself, as if there was somebody else there opposing his thoughts. Maybe he can secretly talk to harts, she mused.
Kieran mumbled something else to himself before stopping his hart. "It'll be dark soon," he called to Vex. "Let's set up camp in that clearing to the east." He pointed to a spot not too far off the road.
"Why not ride through the night? The border isn't far, we can always rest at an inn once we're there," she said. Something about this strip of road made her very uncomfortable, but she didn't know why. It was an odd feeling, like they were being watched. But Kieran didn't need to know that, she decided.
"Better to rest up and cross the border in the morning. I've travelled a lot more than you have, so I can tell you that riding by night is usually dangerous."
Vex scowled at him. He wasn't gonna make this easy, was he? "A little further, then. I just wanna get away from this spot."
"But there's a nice open spot ri–"
"No. We're riding a little further."
You're not going to win this fight, boy. Kieran silently cursed Urthemiel for stating the obvious before finally conceding with a sag of his shoulders as she rode off in front of him on her black horse. He took a longing look back at the spot that could've been home for the night as they rode past it. Just then, he felt a little mental nudge from his dragon. Look closer now, it urged him. He looked off into the woods past it, only to see several pairs of bloodshot eyes staring back at him. If you would have set up camp, Urthemiel lectured, those darkspawn would have ambushed us. It seems the girl's instincts were correct. Though Kieran did not share the taint of the Grey Wardens – his body had rejected the Joining thrice – Urthemiel's former connection to the horde somehow allowed him to sense darkspawn much in the same way, something for which he was grateful for at the moment.
The bushes where the eyes stared from began to shake. Two hurlocks sauntered out, crudely armored and with weapons drawn. Kieran looked to his companion ahead of him. "Vex? Ride faster!" Not needing much more of a reason, she spurred the horse she'd named Sophitia into a gallop. With a trumpeting noise, his hart, named Luca charged ahead to match Vex's pace. The hurlocks couldn't catch up, he reasoned; after all, it's not like they used bereskarns as mounts or something. The border was almost within view; once they were there, Kieran knew of a little town not far away where they could rest.
Another nudge from Urthemiel made Kieran turn around again. "Son of a…!" The hurlocks were riding bereskarns! "Uh, Vex?"
She turned and her jaw dropped. "Andraste's dimpled buttcheeks! Are those darkspawn? Riding bears?!"
"They're actually known as beresk- oh, whatever, just shoot one, will you?" Kieran threw a dagger sheathed in his boot at one of the closing hurlocks but only caught it in the shoulder. Perhaps you should have taken that dwarf in your father's keep up on her offer to teach you how to properly handle a dagger, the Old God taunted. Vex drew her new staff and did her best to aim it while riding. Charging it with her mana, she fired off a bolt of cold, which barely missed Kieran and froze a small patch of road behind him. "Hey, watch it!" he yelled.
"Sorry," she said, blushing from embarrassment. "Guess I'm not such a good shot when I'm riding."
One of the bereskarns hit the icy patch and slid, tumbling into its companion and knocking them both down. Their bony protrusions impaled the hurlocks, leaving them writhing but still alive under the corrupted beasts. "I beg to differ," Kieran chuckled.