Forgive the delay, but I've had to do an awful lot of chapter splitting. Putting this and the Kirkwall dock scene together just didn't feel right. With Bethany's inevitable departure at the end of Act One, I want her to be around more. I'm also contemplating a more concise chronicling (alliteration!) of their first year in Kirkwall.

Warning: Some disturbing content ahead.

16/01/12: Update reposted; my account glitched pretty badly

The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in.

- Harold Goddard

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.

- Robert McKee

The witch stayed true to her word, leading Aveline and the Hawkes to Gwaren where they took ship. None of the grieving refugees would ever forget their brief time with Flemeth in the Wilds, for none could have imagined their homeland to be a place withholding such ghastly secrets from its people. Flemeth however, welcomed the experience, glad to traverse a region of the Wilds that had mostly set itself apart from the tedious half-truths of her own legend. Mostly.

By the time of their trek, the Blight had established its destructive stranglehold on Ferelden, and many people in possession of the necessary coin were fleeing to the Marches; with or without the new regent's blessing. Be they nobles or nobodies, countless families had gathered what little they could what little time they had and set out on any vessel capable of lasting such a journey. In a few more hours there would be no still ship and no wharf left fulfilling its role. Even with her prodigious magic and unmatched knowledge of the land, Flemeth informed her followers that the one remaining chance they had of making it through the Wilds quickly enough involved walking down Malencath's Way – the most cursed piece of land in the Korcari Wilds. The witch's revelation was not met with any fear or resistance, for her following had already left the broken bodies of their loved ones to rot away into nothingness on the slopes of the northern wastes and in their minds, nothing worse could befall them.

Love did strange things to people, she mused; strange and silly yet predictable things. Always predictable things. In a small way Flemeth was grateful to see their collective skin thicken so quickly, but wished she did not have to put up with the tiresome symptoms of their sentimentality.

Oh, the follies of love, she thought scornfully, seeing the sunken greyness in Aveline's once strong features and the way such stout and sturdy Hawkes seemed to shrink, trembling under the weight of their overindulged emotions. When will they learn? There can be no room for an encumbrance as destructive and impractical as love: not where they are going.

Yet for all her doubts, more than once Flemeth found her mind and eyes had settled on the young, sword-wielding man never far from the front of the group. But there is potential in you, Bradon Hawke. Such potential even my own vision dims into uncertainty; thwarts the far-stretching horizon of my mind with impermeable mists and leavens the clarity of my judgement with the usually unthinkable poison of doubt. What will you become?

She thought of the only other witch in Ferelden, the younger one; the one with her yellow eyes and heart-shaped face. The one with a body still full, fresh and desirable but a mind incomplete and impressionable.

She must remember her place. She must do her duty.

Within two hours, the party had left the dry, rocky wastes behind, delved far into the Wilds and set their feet on the first few uneven steps of Malencath's Way. Flemeth did not need to recite the tale; for Malencath's wickedness lived on in every feature of his natural namesake. As the woods thickened, as the world darkened and the road sloped ever downward into the deep, more and more insidious layers of the story were pulled away, unmasking the long-gone embodiment of madness.

Malencath had been the cruellest of all Chasind chieftains; only the 'child-devouring' Witches of the Wilds seemed to have left a more infamous mark on the Wilders' history. Like all great Chieftains before and after him, he had been a man of war, claimant to many women and a keeper of their most ancient lore. The story of his origin is a legend almost as old as Flemeth and her many names.

All incarnations of his story fellowship in an elite, inner-circle of details…

A huntress; tall; strong-limbed; white of hair and great in the ways of the fighting Chasind, ventures too deep into a forest on one ill-fated evening. The forest is entering the final stages of being claimed outright by a fog descending with deceptive quickness.

Before long she is lost, with no greater change of a saving grace than a fly oblivious to the taught silk wrap that like the fog is silvery white and eerily beautiful but oh so deadly. Unlike a trapped fly, this huntress will not be granted the mercy of death immediately following the ordeal.

It happens. Nature watches without intervention. Any divine authority that may exist watches with indifference. The huntress is seized and violated against an evilly-formed rock by a wandering abomination. It goes on through every hour of the night without pause until her entire world is nothing but pain and sickness and blinding white and the thing's hating eyes: two wicked windows showing her all the malice of the Black City.

The sun rises and the white mist is strengthened. She's almost blinded now. She can forgive the bountiful sun; it does not mean its misdeed. The creature stops and disappears into the mist. She is left to die, too weak to even sob. The abomination's choice of cover has not lifted with it: for the white mist does not do her the courtesy of fading away with the sunrise. The web always outlives the spider.

Hours multiply and death is calling. Death's voice is a tantalising lullaby, and she feels her will waver with each gentle note of the serenade. But she refuses defeat. She lifts her bruised head and looks upon the toothed, lichen-spotted rock against which she has been befouled, seeing the drying burgundy imprint of her blood. The cloudy glare gives it an almost holy, sacrificial significance. She stands and tries to put her torn bear pelt coverings back together. Her hands won't still themselves long enough to allow for any knotting, so she decides to let her blood stick the fur to her skin. There are more than enough elongating red streaks leaking out of her neck and nose and mouth and ears and scalp to form a satisfactory adhesive; the blood-laced vomit that bubbles up within her before bursting out like a hot spring is overkill.

Only the pain.

Only the sickness.

Only the white.

Unknown time has passed with her staring at the rock, somehow able to remain vertical for the duration. She can feel the sun's warming caress on her back, and realises her injuries are even worse there. Dozens of lacerations bring forth dozens more elongating red streaks that trickle down her body, down her legs and onto the grass where they become round red hats for dozens of green blades.

It tickles.

She laughs. She cackles. She's not amused, not even remotely. She's half-mad – no; not even that. The huntress is not mad, having in this moment been cleared of all rudiments that constitute sanity. She can't afford madness, she can't achieve it. She's empty. Yet still she laughs at the tickling sensation. Laughter born of joy, mirth and merriment has become meagre memory; tangy taste from the single bite of an apple that has since decayed and returned to the dust. She moves at last.

Somehow she makes it back to the camp. She doesn't notice the heartbroken embrace of her father. She can't feel the warm water washing away the blood. She never flinches during the application of stinging, scouring remedies. Her Wilder kin paint themselves every known colour and dance around a raging fire, calling on the aid of gods with names known and forgotten. Incense melds with smoke turning from black to grey as the fire dies down and the huntress remains still and uncured. There can be no consolation for her: a demonic seed is already planted inside the womb. She can feel it burn and grow. Unlike the abomination, who has inadvertently sired a terrible half-human son (she knows it's a son, she just knows) this huntress is not granted the mercy of being ignorant of the evil within her. Her mind returns as her body begins to fail.

She stares, catatonic at the tent ceiling with her father's hand in her own. The shaman enters, interrupting the first few words of an old ballad she loved as a girl. The huntress speaks for the last time, asking for something denied to all other Wilder women. Her father nods, as does the shaman. In the morning an herbalist brings her a wooden chalice containing a mixture of wallflower, myrrh and wormwood stewed in blood and well-aged wine. He assures her that it will flush the evil seed from her body.

The elixir fails. The seed's growth only quickens. The mother-to-be only weakens. Deathroot is added to the potion, but to no avail.

A month later, with white lightning knifing the night sky and thunder cracking like the whip of an Old God's tail, the child is born. The huntress' father has not moved from her side during this whole time. She does not scream during the birthing and dies with a smile on her face when it's over. The mother never sees the child. The child does not cry. There are no tears in its wicked little dark eyes. The boy's grandfather cannot bring himself to kill the child, and the shaman sees some hope. The shaman raises the child apart from the other Wilders, and the boy grows at an alarming rate. By age five the boy is tall and muscular and white of hair but never speaks. One morning he leaps up during meditation and flees, vanishing into the densely-misted forest in which he was conceived. He returns seven years later with the body of a fully-grown man, and the mentality of a monster.

Malencath's reign drenches the Chasind peoples in torrents of blood for many decades. He does not need an army to initially seize power: the Wilds seem to obey his every whim and in only weeks, willing fighters swear allegiance to the half-demon. Blood magic – though permissible among Chasind, becomes as commonplace as regular spellcasting amongst those skilled in the arcane. With a massing horde of summoned demons, blood mages, hulking warriors, slaves and savage beasts, Malencath overpowers tribe after tribe. Rather than fear or fight the hated Witches, he seeks them out. Whether he had any success is not known.

Before suddenly vanishing again as he had done in youth (though this time – to the delight of many; forever) Malencath marked out a sickening trophy. A straight road many miles long was laid out through the middle of a forest; surprisingly near the more civilised lands that would one day become united Ferelden. There, Malencath had the remains of his most reputed enemies hanged up on either side; swaying from the trees, stuck to the branches by the throat on hooks; blue and swollen and ever-watching with their dead eyes. His remaining followers blessed every stone with the vile blood magic rituals that had marked out the peak of his power.

The web outlives the spider. The road outlives the monster.

This path of destruction became the sacrosanct Malencath's Way. There the Fade remains perilously thin and the land itself seems to know these atrocities should never be forgotten.

Only Flemeth knew the details, the most intimate truths of his origin and endeavours, but words have power, and sometimes stories prove far more potent at burrowing into the soul and laying their eggs than the real truth.

~o~0~o~

"Quite a digression there Varric," said Cassandra, raising her black-shadowed eyes and folding gauntleted arms.

The Seeker's steely tone did not match her rather conversational choice of words, and Varric knew this to be a remark requiring every bit as much caution as one of her already signature bouts of dagger-brandishing. He preferred the daggers; he liked their lack of subtlety. He had learned over the years that the weaving together and distribution of words far outshone those of weapons where consequences were concerned.

But thankfully, words always gave more wiggle-room for backup plans than weapons. "Why do you think I told you that little side story?" he asked.

"I'm asking the questions." She took a step towards him into the lamplight, and the white sigil on her breastplate became a close imitation of a true sun, forcing his eyelids to squeeze together. "Are you slowing the pace to give your friend more time, dwarf? Because if you are, I suggest you stop right now."

"Nothing so audacious, Seeker," he grunted under the oppressive red of his lids. "Besides, I've no idea where Hawke is, what he's up to…what do I have to stall?"

She backed away again, giving his eyelids a chance to rest.

"The Champion-"

"-didn't listen to me as much as everyone thinks." He smiled fondly before shrugging. "Yes, I was an advisor as much as a friend and I'm proud of it. But when Bradon was driven enough; I could only watch. Anyway, 'give him more time?' – You're not planning to hurt Hawke should you locate him, are you? Because if you are, I suggest you stop right now. People tend to die when taking him on."

Varric couldn't stop the smile from spreading over his face as he saw fear enter Cassandra's. Even the capable Sister Nightingale would tremble at the thought of crossing Hawke. He wandered what her lover would make of it, and seconds later had already subconsciously begun spinning the hypothetical tale of Warden versus Champion.

"I'll ask again, Seeker: why did you think I told that little side story?"

Frustration coursed through Cassandra. "That 'side story?' So you are digressing."

"Poorly worded," Varric said quickly. "Not a side story, more a piece of flesh on the bone as my old man used to say. Having heard about Malencath and the huntress, what do you think?"

"I think you're up to something! I think you need reminding why you are here and what is expected of you!" She picked up the dagger-pierced tome at Varric's feet and slammed it, flat-side into his chest again. This time Varric enjoyed a split second to brace himself against the impact.

Cassandra pulled the knife out and returned to the room's more obscured end. "Will that suffice? Tell the story Varric. Take prompts from the text if you must; Maker knows there are parts that need clarifying, but don't let me catch you reading that thing out, word-for-word."

Varric sighed and tucked the book under his arm. "Seeker…the rape in that forest didn't really happen. I needn't bore either of us with the details of abomination infertility – but the girl seemed so real when you learned the tragic account of Malencath's supposed origins, didn't she?"

Cassandra remained silent and looked away, knowing no other method of confession she was prepared to impart on a dwarf. She was glad he couldn't see her, though her wordlessness was unmistakeable.

Varric pressed his advantage. "I saw your disgust at what she went through. I saw your relief when I told you her suffering was over. Remember this: to so many people in the tribes, she is real." Varric's leather-gloved fingers came together again, two-by-two. "Yes, there was indeed a Chasind Chieftain named Malencath, and his evil was extraordinary. His enemies died in untold numbers. He showed young maids no more intimate gentleness than his supposed 'father' had done. His rapport with the demonic was so relaxed and natural it should come as no surprise that so many considered him at least half full of their essence."

"Why waste our time with this?" she spat with her teeth gritted.

Varric continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "A tale can be as destructive as it is powerful. This war…" he sighed.

"What of it?"

"I'm no sage. I'm no philosopher and I'm certainly no great scholar, but I was right at the heart of what sparked everything which brought you here, and I noticed it had been happening for centuries." He wiped sweat from his brow. "This war is a…failure of empathy."

Cassandra returned to his sight. Her eyebrows went up in derision and then creased down in confusion.

"Not very eloquent, I know," said Varric with another smile. "Too few templars – in positions of actual influence, at least – were prepared to even consider how they made the mages entrusted to their care feel. Too few mages were prepared to even consider how their foraying into blood magic made them appear to others. Too few sisters were prepared to consider anything but some vague, optimistic idea that somehow everything would work itself out."

"You dare!" she hissed.

"I do, Seeker," he declared loudly. "The huntress is real to many Wilders and her story makes them weep. That rather…silly figure – I'll admit it – that I mentioned earlier; the Empress' Point-wielding Bradon Hawke leading his buxom sister, is real to many mages. In fact, that flawlessly heroic incarnation of Hawke may be the most accurate depiction of him they'll ever be treated to. They believe a lie, and believe it with all their hearts. It's the same for many templars and Andrastians in general. Picture a vilified version of what I told you and you'll understand them better. You believed a lie, Seeker. I want you to know how it feels before you think of judging others for doing so."

He ended to a shocked silence.

"Continue," was all Cassandra could say.

~o~0~o~

Ask any poor soul who has braved Malencath's Way their opinion of the experience and you will hear similar stories every time. The accounts are almost identical in fact, as their only true variation concerns what will be spoken of first.

Some with start their woeful tale with how they found every sense heightened to a state they had previously considered impossible. When you have gone deep enough into the Wilds, things change. Some are never the same. Every smell, from festering marshland mire to the unnamed beds of black flowers is distinct to the point of violating the nose. Every colour is sharpened. Water, inky-black, slithers through cuts in the ground, speckled every so often by with what little light can seep through masses of withered vegetation overhead. Everything else is an uncaring grey, murky brown or midnight blue. Healthy green is a distant memory, if it ever existed.

Sound grates the ear, imprisoning the traveller in a catacomb of shrieks, creaks, crackles and thuds – all from things out of sight yet never quite far away enough. The sounds betray many beasts otherwise hidden. Blight wolves with coats like silver knives slink through masking undergrowth, waiting to end your life.

The taste of the Wilds – a sickening union of bitterness and pungency – comes free with the winds; spoon-fed until you either adapt or retch. And there is nothing you can safely touch on the Way without the supervision of a native guide. Age has moulded everything in there in accordance with its own will. Sharpness and coldness define the shape and feel of each surface. The threat of infection resides in thorns, needles and nettles. Skin turns to ice when brushed by breeze or leaf.

If not starting with the senses, the traveller will tell how unwelcome they felt. They say a 'trespasser's guilt' descends on you as you are beset by a treacherous, uneven path of poisonous plants and hidden quagmire capable of swallowing you whole. And after that come pilings of rock that fail under human weight, becoming undisturbed graves where insects come to feast on your forgotten flesh. Above are the remaining judgements: birds impossibly large and impossibly cruel and seeds that grow so heavy and so jagged they deal out a crushing death to anything caught beneath their fall. Mists roil up, unprovoked all year round, serving to make any Korcari trap a likelihood.

No matter when they tell this part of their story, the traveller will fear it most. The Way's most frightening feature is not its judgemental emanation, its stalking beasts, many well-formed traps, nor its ability to amplify one's awareness of these gruesome gifts. The worst feature is its abundance of things not fully seen or known; its exploitation of man's inability to grasp the surrounding world as much as he'd like. Nightmares come as naturally as breathing for those able to attain sleep. In winter, many fail to find out where their nightmares end and reality begins – if it ever does. Demons are seen and heard ubiquitously. Tricks of the light become bright eyes. Creaking branches become bloodthirsty moans born of the demonic pleasure of claiming another victim. High-reaching bushes of thorns become horned tails, swishing as the demons play and plan more evil.

More people may have disappeared in the northern wastes than the Way – but only because few were foolish enough to go there. Even the most seasoned Chasind or naturalist knows there are more dangers than they could ever know hidden in its depths.

Yet Flemeth led Aveline and the Hawkes through all of this, sweeping every challenge aside without care. The witch's body exuded a magical warmth that kept the blood-soaked, bare-armed Bradon and Aveline from freezing, and all of them from the otherwise unbeatable fatigue brought on by sparse food and water, together with the rigorous fighting and running that had been undertaken all day. Yet there was nothing in in Flemeth's help or magic that endeared anyone to her: the prowess-enhancement she gave was purely physical.

Grief was a well-fed parasitic worm in the survivors, eating away at what felt like all but the most base of their instincts. Leandra no longer feared her own death. She had seen Malcolm depart an invalid, worn down to a nub by a life of unending rigour. She had seen Carver's violent end on the uncaring slopes of a wasteland. What was left in the world to put the fear of death in her? As long as Bradon and Bethany were safe under the shielding loyalty of a mabari hound, disciplined prowess of a well-trained warrior and seeming omnipotence of this apostate, what did she have to live for?

Her prayers remained unvoiced, held behind trembling white lips. Oh Maker, take me next, she begged. Give my little ones nothing but long years, warm summers, true loves and many children of their own. Bless Aveline as you have blessed me. Sustain her through widowhood as you sustained me. Gift her with long life and friendship as you gifted me.

Carver's greatsword was an anchor on Bradon's back; determined to still him with guilt and shame before sinking him into drowning depths from which there could be no escape.

Bethany's wooden burdens evoked a similar feeling. So much power and history in her father's old instrument, so much responsibility, so many reminders of his greatness and the shadow she occupied in the wake of his departure. How could she honour his name when she couldn't defend his flesh and blood?

Aveline's shaking hand kept darting to the hilt of Wesley's sword. She couldn't bear to touch his ceremonial knife. Yet the thought of throwing it away into the ebony-coloured slime beneath her boots was even worse.

Overall, they stopped only twice. Their first stop was before a small waterfall: an icy, moonstruck curtain of swaying, silvery blue arching over the rock and ending in bursts of white spray. The overhanging stream gushed cruelly, breaking off in many forks, becoming lost amid uncoloured weeds and a throng of dead trees before ending in more mire in the dark.

The crimson-gowned Flemeth led them to the river's edge, where cruel currents lapped dangerously close.

"Come," she said.

Flemeth's five followers started forwards, too addled by unforgiving memories to think of second-guessing her. Bradon and Aveline were at the front, staying close to the witch; hoping to continue feeling her aural warmth.

"Not you two," Flemeth added, looking at Bethany and Leandra. The two women stopped, and Flemeth stepped into the water.

A wind blew and the waves became sharp peaks, intensifying by the second. How would Flemeth be able to-?

But the soon wind hushed, and even the waters obeyed the witch. They stilled around her, and the bereaved warriors followed.

Aveline went in first. She felt strangely glad to feel the cleansing freshness of water wash away the darkspawn blood, which had become a crust of black on her skin and clothing. But there was still some dark red staining her: on her tunic, in her orange hair. Red: clear and terrible, red on her hands and face. Wesley's blood.

Aveline let out a miserable gasp before sucking the evil air in again. She bent forward, hoping the silver-layered peaks would stab through what was left of her heart, wanting to breathe in and let the waters to fill her, end her.

"Stop," commanded Flemeth. "There will be no need for that."

The waters around the witch remained still. Her dragon-like coverings appeared dry despite their immersion, just as the fires had not tarnished her cloak.

"Young Mater Hawke," said Flemeth. The witch's bright, sulphurous eyes were still on the shaken Aveline.

Bradon followed, feeling the still, refreshing water as Aveline did. Carver's sword was an even greater burden on his body. Maybe it would tarnish his soul. Occie paddled at his side. The dog's panting steamed into white ghosts on the freezing air.

Flemeth smiled and turned away to the furious spray of the waterfall, carving a feathery curl in the stream. When she reached the curtain it peeled apart with a grotesque, sucking noise; the gurgle of a dying, blood-choked ogre. A stone-arched void of blackness greeted her, and she went in.

"Come!" she repeated. Her weathered rasp turned to a resounding cackle in the cave. The water knitted together, once again becoming a curtain of silver. Bradon, Aveline and Occie went through together. Icy thuds assaulted them on all sides, every pore felt drenched. Their breathing stopped at the sensation.

There was nothing visible in the cave beyond. Even with Flemeth somewhere nearby, the shivers came. Light then flooded the chamber as flame burst from Flemeth's gloved palm. The unruly eruption was soon tame, becoming a sphere in her long fingers. The well-lit witch examined them closely.

"Yes…yes, that's most of the blood gone. But infection is as subtle as it is deadly. Your hound will need to do the rest. Sit."

She pointed at a small, smooth rock on their left. Bradon went first. He stayed as still as he could under the unpleasant sensations of Occie's foul breath and tickling tongue. After too long, the dog was done.

Aveline managed to control her winces better, but felt close to tears when the mabari cleaned off the last of Wesley's blood. She was horribly confused: torn between her self-loathing over shedding it and the sadness of seeing the last of it go.

She tensed her well-developed muscles and shook herself. It's not what he would have wanted, she thought as the dog's work neared its end. Clinging on like this…he told you to live, self-pity destroys everything but itself. You loved him enough to respect his final wish.

She shot a glance at Bradon, who did not notice. He was hurting every bit as much as she. He was still responsible for more people; and he was already proving far more capable than she. They'll be a time to remember. Until that comes, you have people to protect. They saved your life, woman.

"Flemeth," said Bradon when Occie had finished and began groaning and spluttering. "He's had too much blood. Infection in hounds is rare but-"

"But he can be helped," the witch finished. A smaller rock in the cave's corner splintered into a dozen pieces, revealing a velvety flower beneath. It had the colour of cloud and the smell of honey; a delicate white blossom seamlessly flowing into dark red, from its curvaceous brim to its centre. Even Flemeth's bright eyes and hand of fire dimmed by comparison.

"Give him the petals," said the witch as Occie's trembling limbs folded and he collapsed.

Moving with a quickness that defied every icy tremor in his body, Bradon plucked off each soft petal and placed them into Occie's open, black-stained mouth.

"Eat," he urged. "Eat Occie!"

"The change will be gradual," Flemeth drawled dispassionately. "I wouldn't allow him to fight for a few weeks. Keep him well away from darkspawn when you arrive in Kirkwall – by that I mean steer clear of Sundermount for a little while. I am not without patience."

After a few tense minutes of wheezing and weary chomping, Occie got up on still shuddering legs, offering his master and the witch a weak but sure noise of gratitude.

"Thank you," Bradon gasped, "I don't know how to-"

"Yes you do."

The iron bas-relief twitched in Bradon's sodden pocket.

"A favour for a favour," Flemeth remarked.

Bradon turned to Aveline, and for a few seconds found himself taken aback by what he caught a glimpse of. The hard and humourless severity of the woman had been stripped away; long orange hair once tied and ponytailed hung loose, plastered on a glowing white collarbone dappled with freckles. Emerald eyes completed the image. She looked beautiful; uniquely so; more than she seemed to be aware.

His momentary curiosity went unnoticed: Aveline stood still in the light of fire and water, watching the revived Occie with glassy eyes and a clenched jaw.

Flemeth sensed her resentment. "There was no cure for your man, my dear," she croaked.

The former soldier responded with a terse nod and marched out of the cave without waiting for her current guide's consent.

"What happened?" said Leandra as the group reunited on the shadowy riverside.

"Occie was infected," said Bradon, breathless from a cold too paralysing to allow further explanation.

Flemeth raised her hands and whispered in the wind, performing another esoteric spell. Bradon thought of white spiders as he watched her fingers flex. Moments later, a wonderful wave of heat washed over himself, Aveline and Occie, drying their skin and clothing in a few seconds.

"Onward," said Flemeth when the wave subsided, bored with their expressions of appreciation. "One more stop before the shoreline."

Their only sustenance came in the form of a few supped mouthfuls of water filling the cobbled, ivy-covered ruin of a former fountain; a platter in the hand of an angel, face weathered by centuries of all the cruelties that the harsh Wilds could administer. After that, they ate one or two bites of fruit; icy, slimy and tasteless. These were ingested on nothing but their faith in Flemeth's words, as the witch claimed there was nothing else safe for eating or drinking on their particular road. This second stop, in the shade of cavernous ruins and prickly overgrowth, was all the rest required for their remaining journey. Flemeth never drank, never ate, never rested and had so far never said a word that was not urgently needed.

After more uncounted hours of wordless wandering down the Way, they stopped at an apparent dead-end of steep stone climbing into the world above. Flemeth commanded them to remain still, and took a few paces from them.

She whispered again. None could hear what exactly, and if they had, the language would have remained indecipherable. Each whisper doubled and tripled and quadrupled as soft echoes; call-and-response utterances from disembodied voices above, beneath and all around. Bradon leaned in and caught a string of disconnected but recognisable words.

"The promise you made to me…the secrets you took…pieces kept…is open…your promise, child…"

Flemeth's turned her coil-crowned head to a nearby tangle of thorny branches that formed a jagged wall between two towering black trees. The branches cracked, split and flew apart, letting in the first sunlight seen in hours; sunlight so powerful nothing beyond the gap was visible in any detail. It was golden and gorgeous in such a miserable place.

"And now, I must say my goodbyes."

No blinding envelopment of white and gold light encased the retiring witch this time. No colossal sky-winger flew up through the trees and to the heavens beyond. Instead, Flemeth simply stepped away from the others, downhill past a stretch of bubbling black mud and into deeper shadow. She was gone a second later in a swish of her cloak, consumed by the ravenous dark.

Her departure was felt straight away. Hours of sore muscles, hunger, thirst and sleep deprivation that Flemeth had kept at bay descended on the travellers. Bethany almost collapsed into her mother's arms, Aveline and Bradon's knees jerked, mirroring Occie's movement. They then scrambled through the sunlit gap like imprisoned rats, fearing it would close itself again with the supernatural wind gone. The biggest surprise awaited them.

~o~0~o~

Bethany was the first to speak again. "Bradon…" she whispered. "Mother…"

They were overlooking the Ferelden shoreline. Behind them were no Wilds, but ordinary woods. None of them could see anything that even remotely resembled what they had spent hours travelling through.

"What did she do?" Aveline gasped. She turned to Bethany. "Is this even possible on such a scale?"

Bethany had no real answers. Her mind flashed back to the circle of stakes and stones back in the northern wastes – where she had found herself and her family moved out of the ogre's reach without explanation.

"Instinct, she said out loud, more to herself than the others. "Father said it happens sometimes, but never met anyone who could control it."

"Instinct?" said Aveline. "What?"

Bethany shook her head. "There are some things about magic I don't even want to know."

A cobbled pathway sloped down between two cliffs jutting from the beach below, which was grainy and dull like an unwashed cloth. At the pathway's end they spotted a small, flat-bottomed fishing cog alone at the end of a long line of ship-less quays which were under constant attack from thrashing grey waves. A dense crowd had gathered at the foot of the cog's only ramp.

Walkways of splintery wooden planks creaking in the wind ran from the quays off into the far distance, where the vague outline of Gwaren's outer city limits was visible among immense trees. None in the weary group could see far enough to determine whether any damage had been done to the Terynir by the Blight, but no smoke stroked the sky, and no flame flickered. Seeing the Terynir, even so little of it, brought Aveline's accusation of betrayal back into the forefront of Bradon's mind.

The words had been uttered an eon ago: when there were three Hawke children and two Vallens in their party.

Bradon touched Aveline's arm. She knew why.

"Not now Hawke. I'll tell you the details when we're safe. There may be others on board who know more than I; they share his hometown after all, and we'll be out of his grip if the indictment gets turned on us as it did for the Wardens."

Another wind roared, this one over the murky sea. The Hawkes and lone Vallen crossed the beach in great discomfort, feeling the sting of disturbed sand whip over their residual wounds. Bethany tried another arcane shield in the hope of providing a temporary but nonetheless relieving shelter from the storm, but faltered when the noises of the crowd before them entered earshot.

Bradon stepped to the front of the group again, fighting to subdue the aches, pains and shakes surging through him. He knew the importance of the group's cooperation, having been saved by it many times during their battle with the darkspawn. But there was something else deep inside him now – something new, like a curled-up, sleeping dragon – something that did not endear him to the idea of being led, or more specifically; not being his family's protector. His father was gone. Carver was gone, and he owed his mother and sister a better life, one where they could grieve these losses but look to a hopeful future, knowing nothing could be counted a total waste.

He already felt an admirable and strongly-rooted comradeship with Aveline; perhaps thrown in with an intriguing and unspoken one-upmanship. He liked Aveline. He liked her fighting skills, her intolerance of nonsense, and the fact that her militarisation had not diminished any of her humanity.

As the weary troupe reached their fellow stranded Fereldens at the crowded quay, they discovered something far worse than first feared. The cries of the stranded had been distressing from afar, but up close their stench claimed dominion over even sea salt, fish and rotten wood. They were a jumble of dead, dying, wounded and woeful; struck down in youth or old age; highborn and lowborn. Rudimentary bandages had yellowed and greyed over wounds gushing blood and thick pus. Many people were convulsing, bringing up black vomit and screaming their throats raw. The last of Gwaren's scarce, overworked and underfunded healers and herbalists were scattered among them, applying inadequate doses of potion and casting largely ineffectual spells.

A bald, hunchbacked man with a twisted face clambered awkwardly down the ship's only ramp. "Five more for the boat?" he wheezed, examining each of them with lopsided eyes. He then pointed a stubby finger at Bethany. "Or does this healer need a bloody entourage?"

"We came here hoping you'd be shipping out to Kirkwall soon," said Bradon stiffly. "Aren't you taking any more civilians?"

The man groaned, showing teeth rotted into various shades of black and yellow. His breath smelled as bad as he looked. "Civilians? With a mabari hound, two magic staffs and three blades? I think you'd be more use here."

Aveline frowned and opened her mouth.

"And you two look like military!" he added to her and Bradon. "Don't think we ought to be runnin' the risk o' takin' on a coupla deserters!"

"There's no army left to desert from," said Aveline, stepping forward with the already familiar sharpness in her eyes again. "There hasn't been for a long time."

"The Teyrn begs to differ!" the disfigured sailor countered. "And you can try tellin' that to my nephews, gallopin' off to a civil war, knee-deep in guts right now I bet." He spat on the sand. "Idiots! Sodding civil war it is now. And for what?"

"Even if you were taking on deserters," said Bradon, "what risk would it be? Do the Marchers have any authority over us Fereldans?

"No, but his thing's a fishing vessel, son. I intend to use it when the refugees don't need it no more; so we can't take on anybody with that Blight disease. Everyone else in the hold is clean, but being military, you people 'ave prob'ly faced darkspawn already."

He glanced at some of the less fortunate victims sprawled behind them on the beach. "Thedas don't really care about the spreadin' o' refugees, but plague's a no-no."

"Noddy!" yelled an unseen man from somewhere on the deck. "They look and sound alright to me."

The man called Noddy turned his shiny bald head partway towards the ship. "We've got a mage here!" he shouted back. "Pretty capable one by the looks of it," he added with a wary frown.

Hating himself, Bradon put on his best artificial smile and adopted an enthusiastic voice not unlike those that had belonged to the snake-oil merchants foolish enough to set up temporary shop in Lothering with his father around. "Surely you'd rather see a mage taken to somewhere like Kirkwall, one of the most pious states in Thedas? They don't tolerate apostasy there now, do they?"

He was prepared for the reaction: Bethany grabbed his wrist and squeezed painfully, Aveline and Leandra made partly-stifled noises of disgust, Occie growled. Bradon kept his eyes on Noddy, who after half a minute of contemplation looked convinced enough.

"Alright then, get on," the fisherman mumbled. " 'Ang on," he added with another glance at Bethany, "the girl didn't volunteer to be a healer, did she? We could always use another back he-"

"No," said Bethany, turning pink and feeling like the most disgustingly selfish person alive. A trembling old man with flecks of blood in his wispy hair caught her eye for half a second. She stared at her blood-stained shoes.

"Hmm," said the fisherman. He clambered up again and opened a grate on the deck. " 'S'down there. Nuffin' I can do about the smell, and I ain't referring to no fish."

"Beth," Bradon whispered as they walked up the creaking wooden ramp. Leandra and Aveline listened. "You know I'd never sell you to the templars. We'll think of something when we get there. I promise."

They went into the dark, stench-filled hold, entering another dense crowd of refugees – coughing, crying and consoling one another with unsure words and fervent prayers; old and young, strong and weak. Most had obtained patched grey blankets from the more generous crew members. Others had taken off clothing to wrap up small children. The Hawkes and lone Vallen squeezed themselves into a damp alcove between a large family and frail old couple, who gifted them with brave smiles. A creak of wood, clatter of chains and assortment of sailor shouts told everyone that the newest arrivals would be the last on board.

Leandra took the hands of her surviving children. "I'm so proud of you two," she breathed. "And Aveline; there's nothing I can do to repay you."

Aveline nodded and leaned back against the wood. "I'm every bit as indebted to your family, Mistress Hawke."

Occie seemed to notice the younger widow's sense of detachment and gave her cheek a quick, grateful lick as somebody on the deck above covered the grating with cloth, darkening the hold further. She responded with a rather embarrassed stroke of the dog's muzzle, glad the darkness had kept this exchange between the two of them.

With a final shout from the captain – this one loud enough to rise over the vocalising wounded – the ship lurched and was on the waves, onwards to the uncertain world beyond.

This was pretty experimental. Let me know what you think.

References in this chapter: Eudora Welty's A Memory, Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror and Call of Cthulhu, Martin's A Game of Thrones, King's The Dark Tower.