Chapter 30

Prelude of the Chaos

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Mahariel

The rain stopped.

Through the window, I watched Kallian and Grumpy walking towards the north, out of the city limits. Da'shal was too naive to risk her neck for these people. These ruthless killers who would only use her and throw her away when they no longer need her abilities. However, it is not my task to remind her of this all the time.

Once was more than enough. Kallian knew my arguments, as well as my thoughts on the subject. If she was going to use some of what I had suggested or not, it was no longer my problem.

"The sound of the birds in the morning are one of my favorite things," The human with the beautiful blue eyes said right beside me, and I almost had a heart attack. I did not expect her sudden approach. "It seems like their song is more cheerful and happier in these 's like a gift from the Maker, made especially to greet us at each new day."

She had a broad smile on her face and a strange gleam in her eye, much to my suspicion. All I did was mumble something incoherent before returning my attention back to my traveling companions.

They seemed to be arguing again, especially from the sour expression on Noah's face. His bestial stance - the one that he uses so often - was giving me chills, scarier than ever and, like always, Da'shal was not giving a damn about him.

Still not satisfied by my not-so-friendly stance, she stood beside me, turning her attention to the window as well, and I could not stop myself from taking one step away from her. I still did not know what she wanted, but maybe if I ignored her for long enough, she would give up and leave me alone.

"You guys seem to consider a lot what she says." Leliana continued, seeming not to notice my unwillingness to continue this conversation. "And the little that I have witnessed leads me to believe that Kallian is the leader of the group, isn't she?"

I would have muttered again, but she did not give me time for that. "This feeling is important. Bonds of trust strengthen the group, even more in a task so arduous and dangerous as ours."

Andruil help me, would this woman never shut up? Ever?! My ears were already burning after so much chatter, and it seemed that she still had more to say. Lucky me.

"You know what I think?" No, and I do not even care, I thought, but again she did not give me a chance to say anything. "I think I've seen Noah somewhere. I don't know, his face is quite familiar to me, although I don't remember having met someone as angry and quiet as he is before..." She leaned against the window, and I had serious doubts if she did it to get a better view of the outside or if it was only an excuse to stop and breathe. "He is very quiet, indeed. I think that I've only seen him talking with one person since we met yesterday." I did not have to follow her gaze to know that she was referring to Da'shal. "They seem to be very close, don't you think?"

This time I had chance to answer, but said nothing. Da'shal actually was the only one who had anything close to a dialogue with him. The only one who cared to talk with him. I watched the two of them again, closely this time - she had a debauched smirk on her face, that she always wore when she was provoking him. Grumpy always seemed to be angry, no matter the time of day or situation. It was almost sickening. But still ... Still, it seemed I was the only one that had anything to complain about. Kallian obviously seemed to trust him, and frankly I gave up trying to understand why. The others - Morrigan, Alistair ... Even the dog, and he's a very sensitive creature, seem to be comfortable around him.

Even now, when he was about to, I don't know, attack her, she looked strangely at ease.

I looked at Leliana for the first time since she had began to chatter, and pondered her words carefully. Close. What she meant by that, exactly?

Kallian laughed and ran. Noah probably swore a few times - I could not read his lips or listen to his words, but it was what his stormy expression had suggested.

I wonder if they were really as close to each other as the human said. They had something, and perhaps they were close to some degree, but how much, exactly?

We were talking about a human, and apparently Da'shal was not considering this. She was laughing, for the love of the Creators. Laughing! How could she have fun in a situation like this? How could she have fun with a murderer?

Our bickering is the way I've found to pull him out of the darkness of his mind and bring him closer to what I believe to be his true self.

Perhaps most importantly ... why did Kallian want so badly to bring out his true self? For what? To discover the vile and sickening nature that every human carries within themself, and that sooner or later will emerge? What was the point?

Unless ...

"You dont talk much, do you?" Leliana asked, startling me again. She had been so quiet that I had hoped she was gone, but apparently I was wrong. "I still don't know your voice."

I took a deep breath, already defeated by her insistence, prepared to answer her something, but when I looked out the window one last time, I saw something that made me completely forget what I was planning to say.

Noah was smiling.

Yes, he smiled, before walking towards Kallian, who waited a few feet away, totally unconcerned about his presence, as always.

Is it possible that something was going on between them? It could not be. It was surreal, illogical. Simply could not be, right?

Once they disappeared from my view, another feeling invaded my chest without my consent - a strong grip, like a bad feeling increased tenfold. I'd felt it before, yes, on our way to Lothering. I felt this ... strange ... sensation, as if there was someone watching me every time we were about to fight against a group of Darkspawn. I do not know what it was – maybe it was some Warden thing, that had sharpened my senses, who knows?

Whatever it was, it couldn't be a good sign.

"Leliana," I called, and she was the one startled this time. I think she had already lost hope to hear my voice, and her sudden enthusiasm was shining in her blue eyes. "There's something very wrong here."

"What do you mean by that?" She asked, still half excited, but by the small contraction in her eyebrows, I think she had noticed that I was not kidding.

"I don't know." I answered truthfully, crossing the room in long strides to reach my equipment, and didn't take more than a few brief minutes to gather all my things. "But it's not good, for sure. Call Alistair, quick!"

And so she did, and in less than twenty minutes later, the Chantry's main door exploded.

Noah

I had no doubt about what was happening.

"Horde?" The elf asked me, and before I could finish nodding, we were running back to the city, with the Templars close behind us.

I hadn't even noticed the black smoke painting the sky black, or the comments of those scared kids who only served to wonder if their time had actually come or not. When you are a Grey Warden, you end up learning, one way or another, that nothing is stronger than our perception ability. Once those nasty creatures enter into our range, nothing else matters. We can't just turn it on or off at our leisure, this inner tracker, like a torch that you have the freedom to light whenever you want. The bad feeling just follows us wherever we go, until we die. It is a rather unpleasant fact, but true.

So when you feel not one, not two, but hundreds of Darkspawn in the same place, words become unnecessary. There was no way to react in any other way - just an exchange of glances was enough to understand what was happening.

What about the smoke, the sound of explosions or the assumptions of those children? Nothing mattered. No hypothesis was stronger than the desparate need to know for sure what was happening: They were destroying Lothering.

"Why the hell didn't we feel this before?" The elf put into words what I had been questioning myself, mentally, since I started to run. I had no answer. All I could think about was how it was as we fled throught Wilds, when the threat was so constant and intense, and how this time their approach had been so sudden. It was all so absurd that it was laughable.

"What is happening, Wardens?" The Templar holing the moorings asked as he dragged the Qunari along with him. Interestingly, he did not show any resistance. "It's the Darkspawn, isn't it? They... They are in town, aren't they?"

"You should know, you ..." Another Templar began to whimper on the other side. Not only him, but all the others began to complain too, and with this, my patience was getting closer and closer to zero. I was also getting angry because I couldn't even hear my own thoughts. All because of that damned buzzing ... It had been a good while since I listened to this infernal noise that always led me to do something stupid. "You are the Grey Wardens! You were suppose to know...!"

"Shut up!" To my surprise, it was the elf that exploded, not me. "Stop whining at least for a minute! By the Void, Let me think!" The tone she used was so angry, so serious, that none of them even dared to open their mouths again.

Maker bless her.

I breathed deeply at least three times before trying to say something. Still, I was wary - I could not trust my self, I was so angry.

"We must have ..." I started, and soon got her attention. "... A maximum range for our perception."

"A very limited range, you say," she replied, but there was no sarcasm in her voice, but revulsion instead. Indignation. Anger. "We should have seen that coming."

"What we're gonna do?" I asked. The truth is that I still wasn't able to think straight, and though the answer was quite obvious, I didn't believe she would suggest that we run away. I just hoped she didn't choose to defend the city.

"How are you?" She looked at me frowning, visibly worried. Before I could ask why she would ask such a moronic question, I remembered about the Qunari. Despite his fierce punches, no bones were broken, but surely he would have left some bruises here or there.

"Adrenaline." It was the best answer I could find. It was a short way of saying that I was so numb that an ogre could another oak at me and I would get up happily and dance as if nothing had happened.

On second thought ... No, I would not dance, just for the record.

"Okay." There was a short pause for breathing. "We're gonna fight our way into the city." The elf said determined, in the same way she did when she hit my chest armor with her small hands and challenged me, right after we found the Tree Hugger. Although I don't like sassy people and had hated her look on that occasion, I couldn't say I didnt like her attitude. She had strong eyes and her posture made me believe that this would be a simple task, like any other. I'd say she conveyed confidence, perhaps, and believe me, these Templars needed as much as they could get. "We will grab our people and get out as soon as possible."

She made it look so easy ...

"We are over twenty minutes from Lothering. There will be no more city when we get there."I said. If we considered the sheer number of darkspawn, and how outnumbered the city guard were, then Lothering was probably taking its last breath as we talked.

"Then we will have to make it in ten ... Come on!" She led the way and estabilished the pace, moving easily five or six bodies ahead of us.

Damn elves and their light steps ...

Mahariel

Alistair hastily explained to me what that feeling meant, and then we started to pack our things as quickly as possible. It did not take long for us to be ready, but still to no avail. Not even all the agility in the world would be able to change the facts - we had no time to escape.

We were surrounded.

In the time it took us to reach the stairs, the Darkspawn had organized themselves in front of the Chantry. The door that had been firmly locked by the Templars with thick wooden bars, trembled violently with every onslaught of the enemies, who seemed to be using a battering ram or something like that to break in. The force of the impact was downright scary.

Knowing that the thick wooden door would not stand for long, Alistair ran up into the middle of the hall and started yelling instructions to everyone in the room: the refugees should hide on the second floor, and those who could fight should prepare their weapons and help him push the banks to form a barricade. And so it was done. Even the leader of the Templars, Bryant or something like that, accepted Alistair's plan and had helped him to organize the people, repeating his orders to make sure everyone would understood what they were meant to do.

Four further attacks against the door ensued as everyone raised the barricade. By my calculations, there were fifty to sixty people in the Hall by that time, so the mobilization was impeccable. It's really a shame that humans are only able to see the importance of unity in the face of impending doom. Competence they had, they only lacked the proper census.

Still talking about competence, it was a surprise to see Alistair giving orders. Well, they were not proper orders, but even so, it was an unusual scene. After all, a human who prefers to follow the orders of an elf recruit, still young inside the ranks instead of lead - which, in my opinion, made much more sense. After all, he is the only one who knows how everything works - did not give him much credibility. Not that Da'shal wasn't a good leader - although sometimes questionable, I do not think any of her decisions were bad ones, quite the contrary - but experience was an important factor when it came to being responsible for a group of people. It was true, that the great leaders of which I am aware were chosen both for their life experience and for their wisdom. The most logical choice then, would be that the older Warden should be the one to make decisions.

I must confess that I, more than once, had associated this situation to be the result of the almost certain incompetence of the human when it came to leadership, but apparently I was wrong. He not only was able to get everyone's attention, but also coordinated and optimized tasks in a very impressive way. Just the fact that he got the attention of the people in the midst of widespread panic had been a great achievement, so you can imagine my surprise when I realized that, in addition to making them listen, he had also convinced them to do what he wanted.

His words were simple, and his plan, logical - we were surrounded by Darkspawn on all sides, so any attempt to leave the Chantry would be suicide. The building, from what I had seen, was composed of two floors: The first floor had the Hall, which was where we were now and where we had created barricades to defend ourselves. It also had two adjacent rooms, one on each side of the hall - a small room that looked more like a lecture area, with an extra exit in the bottom (which incidentally was also well locked) and another room, which seemed to be the office of the local religious leader. Both rooms were positioned at the end of the main hall, well before the barriers that were placed near the Main entrace. Thus, in addition to limiting the flow of enemies, we would keep refugees safe on the second floor, since the only stairs available were next to the office.

On the second floor, the refugees could hide in the rooms, just in front of the stairs, or follow the U-shaped corridor to the library, to the other wing. There was the library there and further in, the kitchen, which was on the other end of the corridor. There were several possibilities, and as long as they locked their doors, they should be fine. But what mattered to me at that time was the main hall - it was the best chance we had to defend ourselves, far better than outside, in a open field.

All I know is that I found myself helping them. Two rows of barricades were placed between the door and the Templars, while the few archers took position in strategic locations behind shelves and pilasters. It was all very quick, really, but it was long enough for me to catch myself cheering for the best. I could run away, yes, get out of there sneaking through the shadows and nobody would notice my absence. But I wanted it to work out, and all the mobilization and determination demonstrated by those people made me believe that we had a good chance to get out of there alive.

That is, until the door shook a seventh time and the colossal figure of an Ogre came into my field of vision.

Noah

We ran.

We ran hard.

I thought I was in good physical condition, but after that day I had I was no longer so sure about that. The elf ran like hell, and even though I ran until I felt that my legs would fall off, she always managed to keep a good distance between us without much effort.

Bah. I wanted to see her running that quickly with twenty extra pounds of metal on her back ...

We'd covered a good distance in the short time we ran. She meant it when she said that she wanted to cut the travelling time by half, and I would say she was committed to keeping her word. The others were following us too, but from afar. There were about twenty people with us; Templars and guards, who were still visibly worried, but at least now they had determination rather than fear in their eyes, which was something. Not that I expected too much of them, but I let it be. Right behind them was the Qunari. He was fast for his size, keeping quiet all the time and, of course, I didn't take my eyes off of him in not even for a second. His easy acceptance of his capture made me apprehensive, and deep down I still felt that he would fight back sooner or later.

After five minutes running, our first obstacle arose.

A group of six Darkspawn was surrounding a guard, who tried to defend himself with a broken sword. Given the conditions of the conflict, it surprised me that he was still alive, to be honest. Anyway, regardless of how he managed to survive, we couldn't let him die. At the same time that the elf literally jumped on top of one of the Darkspawn, I threw my sword at one of Hurlocks close to him, hitting the target before he could do anything to her.

The distraction was so good that made them forget about the guard and aim their weapons at us. This was one of the easier fights we had so far, because, for the first time, we were not the minority. It was too good - I wouldn't have changed it one bit.

In the end, we found that the guard was actually a Scout who had fled before the situation got out of control. Coward ... Apparently he didn't report the attack to anyone.

"T-there were many of them ... More than I could c-count. Thousands, ma-maybe ..." He stuttered, probably torn between the fear of being killed by the Darkspawn and the fear of being reprimanded for his selfish attitude. "The La-largest group keep marching while mi-minor one stayed in the city."

"How many are we talking about?" I growled, stepping forward against him. The Scout hesitated, swallowing hard before retreating a few steps to finally be stuck with his back pressed against a tree.

"One h-hundred, maybe t-two." He whispered, and it was the Maker himself that made me punch the tree instead of his face.

"Noah," The elf called me. "He's telling the truth. I can feel the larger group moving away." I turned to her, then in the direction of the city. The Scout slipped to the ground, probably relieved that she had prevented me from striking out a second time. I could feel the larger group moving rapidly away, heading north, and a smaller group in the city, just like he said. That made my anger calm down a bit, but not enough to ignore the fact that the Scout was trying to crawl away from us.

"You, come with me!" I said, grabbing the man by the collar of his armor. He started babbling a half dozen nonsense words to convince us to let him go, but honestly I didn't give a shit. "You will go back and help to fix the mess you've made!"

"Let him go, Noah. We will end up fleeing, sooner or later ..." She said, running a hand over her face up to her forehead, where she firmly pressed her temple. I've done it myself several times, in order to dissipate stress. Not that it had worked, but at least it helped to focus.

"If he had returned to warn those people, they would have a chance to survive. Had he not been a bloody coward, they would have a chance to escape. Every corspe on the ground and every drop of blood spilled will be his fault." I growled, throwing the guy to the ground in front of me. "He's coming with us to see the damage."

"They were already dead, buddy. There was nothing they could have done!" He pleaded once more. "Please ..."

"It wasn't up to you to decide that..." I growled again. The guard, seeing that he would not get anything from me, looked at the elf with such a pleading expression that it made me sick. For a moment I thought she was going to buy it, passing over my decision and disrespecting my authority, but to my surprise, she did not.

Kallian

Apparently, Noah had a serious problem with lack of responsibility and break of commitment. He'd lost his mind again, and went into that berserker mode that the trees hated so much. I was sorry for that poor bastard, although I do agree that his irresponsibility may have decided the fate of an entire town. Noah stared at him like a predator eyeing his prey, and if one single look was enough to kill a person, that Scout would already be under the ground a long time ago.

For me, whatever. Having a jerk with me in the middle of the chaos would only hinder me. Because, he would either end up killing us, or he would run away as soon as he made sure no one was watching, so what difference did it make?

But Noah was serious about this. That was really important to him. I knew this because when we discussed Eilleen's fate that day, he had the same out-of-control hint in his eyes, the same intense hatred burning on his face. You don't forget that kind of thing easily.

Noah looked at me while the Scout was almost kissing my feet. The Templars and guards just waited. And by their angry expressions, I think most of them also shared Noah's viewpoint, mostly because their families were probably still in Lothering.

Man, that Scout was very screwed.

"You heard the man." I replied, and saw Noah's eyes widening slightly with my answer. "That's not my decision. You will come with us."

I started to run again. We had already lost enough time on the road. All I heard was Noah yelling one last order before joining the others whom, by the way, were more determined than ever. Maybe it was anger, or the confirmation of the imminent danger, I don't know, but there was no trace of those children afraid to face the Quinari on them.

They wanted to fight.

"Move it. Now!" Noah growled, kicking Scout's ribs to make him move.

A/N: Kallian's Sketchbook is back, at least until the end of August :) I will keep publishing once per week as usual, but I'm not sure which day.

Thanks for the patience and for the great reviews last chapter. Again, sorry for the late reply, but I needed to fix everything before getting back to ffnet. :D

Also, I'd written a oneshot about Hawke & Fenris called Second Chances. There's a lot of meaning and emotion there, and reflections about feelings that we all had faced at some point in our lives. If you could get a try, I would appreciate. You won't regret it :)