"Well, I didn't mean to kill him," Silfee exclaimed. "He mentioned shiny things and I simply thought that we could trade for gems."

She wrinkled her nose at the crazed dwarf, not yet cold, at her feet. The streaks of blood left behind on the front panel of her armor darkened the brown leather as she wiped her hands hastily against it. "How was I to know he'd react so violently?" she asked. "How was I to know his shiny things were rocks and worms?"

Silfee was beautiful, Alistair would grant her that much. Even surrounded by the horrors of the Deep Road and a corpse at her feet, she managed to look flawlessly radiant. She and her brother both possessed those ocean-colored eyes that could have only come from many generations worth of selective inbreeding. Alistair snickered to himself.

These past months had him surrounded by many beautiful women. This must have been the fantasy that his fifteen year old self had promised so many years ago. Ask, and ye shall receive, he thought wryly. A pity he hadn't considered the personalities attached to such beautiful women.

"Bah!" Their new dwarven guide Oghren, shook his head. "He was a bloody scavenger, good as sodding gone."

"That's a little unfair," Leliana said.

"Word has it you can only survive down here by eating the darkspawn dead," Oghren replied. "It brings the taint. Turns their brain to sewage, but it hides them from the darkspawn."

Silfee's eyebrows shot upward. "That's disgusting!"

And that was how it had been since they left the safety of Orzammar. Duncan had spoken of the Deep Roads, of how he was to return to them after Ostagar. These Deep Roads were not quite what Alistair had imagined.

Death lurking around every corner, yes, Alistair had anticipated that much. But he had thought- had wanted, them to be so much more majestic than they actually turned out to be. The Deep Roads of Alistair's fancy were much more impressive.

So many roads had collapsed in on themselves and lay forgotten. Somewhere, beyond the monuments of Paragons desecrated by its tainted denizens, the Deep Roads were supposed to hold the glory of the dwarven empire. It was hard to believe that long ago there would have been merchants dragging their carts along those roads thick with cobwebs and soil.

He knew they weren't going in circles only because of his ability to sense the roving groups of darkspawn. This was the land where Grey Wardens came to die? He didn't see any signs of Grey Wardens anywhere.

There was an unsettling sort of cold that came with being that far underground.

Alistair cleared his throat. "Have you seen any signs of Branka, yet?"

"I can see Branka all over this place." Oghren nodded. He motioned toward the pockmarked walls with his axe. "She always took chips from the walls at regular intervals when she was in a new tunnel- check their composition." He looked over at them with beleaguered eyes.

"I really didn't mean to kill him," Silfee continued. She knelt beside the corpse and patted it down. "It's beyond me why anyone would fight to the death over a few rocks and a tatty diary."

That caught Oghren's attention. "Diary?" He stormed over to Silfee and wrenched the battered book from Silfee's hands.

"Hey!"

"Stuff it, babe," Oghren barked. "This is Branka's journal." He feverishly began to flip through the dessicated pages.

Nema walked toward him and tried to take the book. Oghren yanked it hard from her grip and they were rewarded with the rip of paper. He continued to read while Nema scowled.

"The Anvil's not in Ortan Thaig," Oghren murmured. He scratched at his beard as he read. "They went south, to the Dead Trenches."

"The Dead Trenches?" Nema asked.

"Aye," Oghren exhaled. Then he chuckled softly as his eyes crossed a particular passage in the diary. "Branka was thinking about me! I knew she still cared! Old softy." He snapped the book shut and looked up. "Makes sense. If she was still here, she'd have sentries out by now."

"Then let's get going," Nema said. She stalked forward, past Silfee and the dead dwarf, and headed toward a bridge carved from stone.

Oghren laughed. "Couldn't have said it better, myself." He trotted off after Nema.

Wynne and Leliana diligently followed while Silfee just shrugged and sidled up next to Alistair. Something about her laughter did not set him at ease. He'd given up on making sense of the noblewoman's actions. So long as they could curtail any of Silfee's cutthroat leanings, the woman was too distracted by jewelry and other idle fancies to be of any real detriment. At least, Alistair hoped she couldn't be of any real detriment.

Of course, once upon a time, Alistair had hoped his father wasn't who everyone said he was. Hope was a dastardly thing that didn't require any basis in reality.

The golem, Shale, stood frozen at a crumbling sign marker at the crossroads that Oghren had led them to. The golem's eyes glowed softly as it tilted its head.

"The Dead Trenches are this way," Oghren said. He pointed in the opposite direction the golem was staring.

"I know this place," Shale said.

"You've been here, before?" Leliana asked. She was the only one that dared to go near the golem, and now she gently rested a hand on Shale's arm.

Shale blinked. "I do not know. I suppose I must have. I do know this place, but I do not remember."

"The sign's illegible," Oghren said. "That path leads to 'Cad-something.' It's a dead end that's been lost in time."

The bard-turned-chantry-girl-turned-bard-again, ever the loony, smiled warmly. "Would you like to explore that area? Perhaps some memories would return to you."

"Yes," Shale said. "Yes, I think I would."

"Oh, great," Alistair snapped. He could feel his nostrils twitch. "How many more of our friends are we going to send away?"

"You think that they asked my permission before they went charging off for a sword?" Nema stared at him with narrowed eyes.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was Faeron and Frannie's idea to be locked up in a prison," he replied.

Poor Frannie. Alistair wished- well, he didn't know what he wished, maybe just that there was something he could do. Their friendship so far was a series of failures he visited upon her. First at the Tower of Ishal, when she stood, confused with an arrow sticking out of her chest and then with her dead friend at the carta's hideout. Now she was locked away, like a convict, left with nothing but her memories to stew over.

All he could think of was that rose he found at Ostagar. Alistair had found it during the crippling quiet that only occurred on the eve of battle. It stood, defiantly in an open field, full, red, and perfect. He knew it would have been trampled by soldiers, mabari and darkspawn, so he took it for safekeeping. Instead, its fate was to wilt, wither and die in his travel sack over the course of their journeys, with Alistair unsure as to why he had plucked it in the first place.

Nema's breath was hot on his throat as she enunciated her words in a hard whisper. "You will not question me in front of the others." She turned to the rest of the group and announced, "What would you have us do, instead, Alistair?"

"I don't know." He raked a hand through his hair. "All I know is that I'm sick of seeing us splinter off more and more as we progress. If we can't stay united, we don't stand a chance against this Blight."

"They say the darkspawn nest in the Dead Trenches," Oghren said. "Whole herds of 'em. But if that's where Branka went, then that's where I'm going."

"If these Dead Trenches are so dangerous," Wynne had a small smile on her face as she spoke, "I think it would be sensible for us to all go together. Would it be acceptable, Shale, if we find Branka first, and then come back to explore this part of the Deep Roads? I promise to personally accompany you if you'll agree."

Shale stood for a long moment and then finally, it nodded. "That is acceptable."

"Thank you." Wynne nodded back and then walked toward the path to the Dead Trenches. She looked back at the rest of the group. "Well?"

As they fell in line behind Wynne, it struck Alistair as odd. Duncan had explained the taint to him once. The Wardens accepted it, a thankless gift, so that they could overcome the darkspawn. Alistair could feel them all, the darkspawn, stronger than any force he had encountered on the surface. His being a Grey Warden meant that he would never be caught unaware, that he could always pick his battles, that there would never be a fear of the unknown.

Ahead of him, Leliana quietly hummed a tune. Silfee picked cobwebs from her hair and Shale trudged onward, expressionless. Oghren looked almost excited, worlds closer to his wife than he had been in two years and Wynne? Well, Wynne was Wynne. Only Nema seemed to have the sense of what they were walking into.

Nema, with her eyes so dark blue they were almost black. Nema, with her golden skin and golden hair and her tiny mouth hardened into a frown. Yes, Alistair certainly had no shortage of beautiful women. Nema had her fist gripped tightly around her staff until her knuckles blanched. She too, could feel the numbers of darkspawn swell and overflow. Near painful in their numbers, they flooded his senses, scratching and chittering at the base of his skull.

No fear of the unknown. They knew exactly what they were walking into.

Alistair screamed and brought his shield up as the first wave of darkspawn descended upon them. Oghren's obscenities sang through the air like a revelry. And as they fought, painted with the blood of their attackers, the darkspawn began to fall and vanish from the rear and flank of the onslaught. Maybe they were scared and running, maybe they performing elegant swan dives off the cliffs into the molten magma below, maybe there was a dinner party they were late for. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but years of training told Alistair to focus on the enemies in front of him and worry about all else later.

Only when the last creature fell to Shale's fist did Alistair realize that they weren't alone. Haggard dwarves, some tattooed, all of them stony and intimidating, surrounded them. Their indifference made it unclear to Alistair whether he should sheath his weapon or not. Oghren began to laugh, bitterness laced into his relief.

"I'll be a nug's ass," Oghren cackled. "We're in Legion territory now, folks."