Edited 3/2. I forgot something!

"Where is she? What's happened?" Alistair stormed into the tent without preamble.

Thorin dismissed the half dozen Grey Wardens that were gathered around the table and straightened her maps. She rubbed her eyes tiredly. How long had it been, two days?

"Your Majesty."

"There's no time for that. I was on my way here with soldiers when we encountered a messenger tearing north with an urgent message for me. What's going on? Where's Cullen?"

"So you took his horse…"

"And came straight away. Yes. Now will you please answer my questions before I go mad?" Alistair pulled off his metal gauntlets and ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end even more than it already was.

Thorin debated for a moment. She had only met the king a few times in her years as a Grey Warden. She didn't know him well and didn't know how he would react to any of this.

"Come with me please," she said, and walked out of the tent without waiting for the inevitable questions. She heard him following and quickened her pace across the nearly deserted field. By the stone and all the ancestors, she thought. A fine mess you've gotten into. At least the king is a Grey Warden himself. Maybe he won't be as hard on the order as another might.

"Where is everyone?" His question brought her out of her thoughts with a jerk.

"South in the valley."

They passed the stables and kennel, walked through an empty practice yard littered with stuffed dummies and targets, and came at last to what looked like a storage area filled with barrels and crates. Here Thorin paused outside a stone enclosure that was fitted with a heavy wooden door.

"I don't know how to explain. I've never been good with words. Ironic now that I'm the Warden-Commander. I'm supposed to lead these men but all I know how to do is fight. It's easier to show you." She pushed the door open on its squeaking hinges and stood aside for Alistair to enter.

Alistair frowned. As he opened his mouth to ask another question, a soft chuckle interrupted him. From inside the rough stone room the chuckle became a laugh, climbing quickly upward to shrieking hysteria.

"What…?" He went inside, wrinkling his nose against a strong stench of sickness and blood.

A small closed lantern hung from the beams at the top of the little room, casting feeble but sufficient light to see by. A man sat in the far corner with his back to the door.

"Cullen?" Alistair started toward him but was stopped by Thorin's hand on his arm. She pulled the door closed behind them.

"Careful," she mouthed.

Alistair looked more closely. Though he could only see Cullen's back he could tell there was something very wrong. Cullen's hair was disheveled and his clothes dirty, something Alistair could never remember happening in all the years they had known each other. Cullen was sitting on the floor in a padded linen shirt and pants of the kind he would wear under heavy armor. He rocked back and forth slightly with his knees clasped to his chest.

"They come back," Cullen said. "They always come back for those that got away. Damned blood mages, trying to get into my head again. I thought I made it all those years ago. They didn't break me. But they come back."

"Blood mages? What blood mages?" Alistair shook off Thorin's hand and crossed the room in two strides. He put his hand gently on Cullen's shoulder. "Where is Eleanor, Cullen?"

Alistair gasped loudly and jumped back as Cullen turned his face up toward him.

"She's gone, gone. She took her. Tried to make me do… things, just like back then." Cullen was grimacing through a ruined face, through ugly and ragged clawed marks over his cheeks and eyelids. "I wouldn't do the things she wanted so she got mad, made me put out my eyes. My. Eyes. I could resist what she wanted at first, the big things, but after awhile I couldn't stop her from making me do everything. She got what she wanted in the end. They always do. You can't fight forever. Even the demons weren't as cruel as she." He was babbling, the words falling out and barely making sense to Alistair's shocked mind.

"Who? Who did this?" He whispered. He couldn't take his gaze from the bloody empty holes where Cullen's eyes used to be.

"The witch! The witch!" The words tore out of Cullen's throat with a laugh and a scream. He doubled over his knees.

Alistair stood stunned, wanting to help his old friend but not knowing how. He reached out hesitantly.

Suddenly Cullen sprang at him. Despite being injured and unarmed, he was incredibly strong. Alistair was pushed back against the wall, his armor clanging loudly and pinching his ribs. He struggled, but could not break Cullen's grip on his neck and shoulder.

"The words get inside your head like worms, until you can hear nothing else," he whispered, bringing his face close to Alistair's. Blood seeped like tears from the corners of his gouged eyelids. "She makes you do it. She makes you." His mouth twisted and his fingers tightened.

Then his clenched teeth and taut lips relaxed and he leaned forward. Alistair caught him as he slumped down. A mage stood silhouetted in the doorway, his hand outstretched and surrounded by a blue glow. A sleep spell. The woman hurried forward as Alistair laid the unconscious Warden down on the straw floor. He caught Thorin's eye and followed her outside.

"He has to be asleep for the mages to get anywhere near him," Thorin explained as they walked away. "He killed one who tried to heal him before we knew what had happened. Even blind, he seriously injured three more before we could knock him out. He's been incoherent ever since."

"He's mad."

"Yes. His mind was broken by what happened in the encampment. Come, this way." She led Alistair up a set of wooden stairs to a scaffold that faced south. "They turned him loose, maybe pointed him toward the door. We didn't have a sodding idea what had happened until after he killed Meg and was throwing Rupert through the fences."

They reached the top of the scafford. Leaning on the railing, Thorin turned her face up to the weak sunlight streaming through the clouds. She felt tired, as tired as the oldest greybeard in Tapster's Tavern.

"They took my daughter, didn't they?" His voice was hollow and emotionless. Maybe anger would come later. Now there was only emptiness.

Alistair saw only an empty field with churned turf, as if there had recently been much activity on the plain. There was no evidence left of the Chasind. Shadowy figures moved through the trees and moss-covered rocks at the edge of the grass; Grey Wardens, searching for a trace of the princess.

Thorin bowed her head and said nothing. She couldn't even bring herself to face the king.

"And they just walked out there?" He waved his hand out at the valley.

"The Chasind left three chieftans in exchange to vouch for their safety," Thorin replied.

"Oh?"

"They are dead by their own hands, yet the gatekeepers would swear they carried no weapons into Ostagar. Whatever they did, it was silent. They were under guard the whole time. We didn't know until we went to question them after Cullen returned. There wasn't a mark on them."

Alistair was silent for a long moment.

"The whole ride here, I was preparing myself for the worst possibility. Now that it's here facing me I can't even think." He spoke softly to himself as he put his hands on the railing next to Thorin.

"It's not your fault," he said, turning his face toward her. His eyes were bright with tears. "No one knew this would happen." He blinked and swallowed hard. "I just have to go find her."

Less than an hour later Alistair was seated on a low stool, trying to compose a letter. He nearly snapped the quill in frustration.

"Dear wife: Lost our daughter. Going after her into uncharted lands with a Dalish Warden and a dog. Be home soon. Please don't send half the country after me. Love, Alistair." He rubbed his forehead. "She'll kill me."

Despite Thorin's ardent objections, Alistair declined her offer of an escort of Grey Wardens. He asked who was the best tracker and once he determined the lad was willing had declared they would set off immediately. Two or three could move faster than many, and every hour counted now. Thorin had sworn under her breath and promised to send patrols after them.

Lauthrin had the new Warden-Commander's admiration; that much was clear. She told Alistair that he had been out in the Wilds almost nonstop since the Chasind vanished, searching the area with his Mabari.

Vanished. They didn't say the Chasind left; they vanished. No one had hear or seen anything—it wasn't until Cullen's pounding on the gate roused the watch that anyone noticed anything amiss. They were simply gone as if they had never been there except for the trampled earth and the missing princess.

The elf was quiet, his face closed to Alistair's inspection, but he had agreed quickly to help him track the Chasind south as far as need be.

"Your Majesty. We are packed and ready." Lauthrin stuck his head inside the tent, bowed, and exited again at Alistair's nod.

Alistair finished the letter and sealed it with wax and the imprint of his signet ring. It was insufficient, but it would have to do. He ground his knuckles into his eyes and leaned his head back. From somewhere in the depths of his memory came the words, "Daughters are six years old with skinned knees forever," and he couldn't remember where he had heard them.

"I'm sorry Charlotte," he murmured, picking up the sealed letter. "We all thought this would be easier. I'm in it now without you by my side. By the Maker I will find Eleanor and return to you." Note in hand, he walked out of the tent and turned his face toward the south, determined to find the Chasind witch and his daughter.