Three
Halvas tightened the straps on his armor, ensuring that the plates were secure against his body.
The old leather was worn and stretched, and his bracers didn't hold as tightly against his forearms as they used to. The slight wiggle annoyed him, but it was nothing that he could fix now. He loosened and then tightened the belt at his waist, dropping his hands to his sides to check that they fell onto the hilts of his weapons where he expected them. He adjusted the scabbard of his sword back slightly, reaching his left arm across his torso until he liked where his fingers landed around the grip on it. After the incident with Kirin and Flynn, he had finished sharpening the blade and taken the time to oil it down, polishing the steel until it glinted in the dim light that struggled to make it through heavy dark clouds that seemed to hang over Lanvendel in perpetuity now, a side effect of the blight, he didn't doubt.
Holden had told him he needed a helmet if he was going out in the marsh, to which Halvas had told him he needed to figure out how to forge a helmet that could accommodate elf ears. How many centuries had the Wardens existed and they still hadn't figured out how to make a helm that didn't require an elf to bend and smash his ears inside of it?
He had slipped an extra pair of socks on inside his boots, both to fight off the growing chill that had overtaken the town, but also to try to put another layer between him and the black murky water he knew he would be trudging through once he got outside of the town. The Dalish in Arlathan forest would go barefoot in wet places like this, to keep boots from sucking down in mud and to avoid the clinging damp of cloth against flesh, but Halvas had been a Warden longer than he had been a Dalish and there was no way he was going mucking through blighted water with his feet exposed. He had learned the hard way in his youth that darkspawn not only could but did lie in wait under the water, waiting for their chance to strike.
Tomasz had finally set his scouting plan, deciding on sending the Wardens out in pairs. Their manpower was sorely lacking and if a scouting group was ambushed, losing two men would be a serious enough loss without it being five or six or ten. His reasoning was sound considering their position and it made sense why the forward commanders had only taken experienced men under their lead for this job. The Fereldan commander had paired him with Ivon, knowing that they had a good rapport and had worked together in the past. His dwarf companion was still at the forge with Clara, getting some last-minute repairs done on his heavy chestplate.
"Are you done fidgeting yet?" Greta asked the question with a smirk as she stepped forward with his shield in hand.
"What have I always told you about preparation?" Halvas said, brushing off her teasing as he lifted the flaps on the pouches at his belt, his fingers dipping inside to check their contents and take inventory without having to look at them.
"'Being prepared before you head out into the Deep prevents you from being dead,'" she recited in a monotone drone at the lesson he had drilled into her hundreds of times.
"And see, you're still alive today to remember it," Halvas said as his fingers finished rifling through his packs. He needed more elfroot, but it was hard to find in the Anderfels barrens. If he had time to travel east into Tevinter or south toward the Tirashan, he'd basically be covered in the common herb, but up here where there was little rain and too much sun, it was nearly impossible to find.
Greta frowned at that thought, no doubt remembering all of the Wardens they lost at Weisshaupt, and it made Halvas regret saying it and being the cause of her darkened expression. There was no amount of preparation that could have saved them at Weisshaupt. In peace, vigilance, but what level of vigilance could have prepared them for the literal storm of blight that had descended on their fortress?
"Don't worry," Halvas said, hoping to dismiss the thought from her head. "There's nothing out there that I can't handle. And, if there is, when I come running back here with the darkspawn nipping at my heels, I'll have you here at the gate to save me."
"Don't even joke like that," Greta said, her dour mood apparently heavier than he first perceived. The week they had spent so far in Lavendel had been hard, both physically and mentally on the Wardens who had survived the trek to reach it.
She needed to see the sun. The midday sun always caused her deep bronzed skin to show the warmth of its color, and when the light was very harsh, one could see her hair that looked nearly black in dimmer settings had an undertone of deep chocolate. She bore the tropical summers of her home in Minrathous in her visage, sun-touched but tempered by the humidity. He could easily picture her on the shoreline, bare feet in the sand where the water of the Nocen lapped up onto the land, as the sea breeze lifted her hair until it floated, like gulls hovering on the warm updrafts over the water.
Halvas carried none of that warmth, his flesh slightly darker, slightly deeper and scorched by the harsh sun, the sweltering day time heat, the freezing night time air, and the cutting, arid wind of the northern fingers of the Hunterhorn Mountains. Further south, closer to the Tirashan, the mountains were lush and covered in greenery, but Clan Ista had roved the northern slopes of the east-west range that separated the disputed border between northwest Orlais, western Nevarra and the southern Anderfels. His clan roved along what was locally and informally called the Index Range because it was the second of five fingers of mountains that stretched from the "wrist" on the far west side of the queer Orlesian forest. The arid hills gave plenty of places for Dalish to hide and hunt, but it was a hard existence compared to other woodland clans that enjoyed the bounty of forest and fauna.
What the Hunterhorn lacked in plant and wildlife, however, it made up for in long-lost dwarven ruins from before the First Blight. The recently rediscovered dwarven city of Kal-Sharok lay at the tip of the Thumb further to the east and the south, but signs of their once-great empire stretched throughout the mountains. It wasn't uncommon to find long-abandoned stone doors in the mountains that were impossible to open from the outside. And occasionally, there were gates to the Deep Roads that allowed darkspawn to bubble up into the Anderfels from their lairs and pits deep underground.
Halvas knew about the peril of those deep doors firsthand, and why the Dalish part of him seemed to feel like a distant memory some days.
There were times when he felt like he knew and understood dwarven culture better than his own, attributable not only to a youth spent in the jagged mountains of the west and the ruins of the dwarven kingdoms that once existed there, but because of the many years he had spent in the Deep Roads as a Warden, clearing darkspawn. The labyrinthine corridors of the old dwarven kingdoms were a marvel to behold, even as broken, blackened and tainted as they were today. Bold treasure hunters, and foolish ones whose bones littered the Deeps, had picked most of the roads and thaigs closest to the surface clean over the centuries. But occasionally, a collapse, a rock slide, a sinkhole or a lava flow would open a new passage lost to history and the Wardens would walk in places that had not seen red-blooded life for nearly a millennium.
The excitement of spotting the glint of dusty gold and jewels in the dark and gloom, however, was always tempered by the numerous small-statured skeletons that littered the thaigs, all that remained of dwarves who were trapped when the impenetrable Deep Roads doors shut or the stone caved in, trapping them within. The scratches in the heavy metal gates from swords and axes that had scraped those impregnable doors spoke of frenzied desperation to escape. The piles of rubble in the stone walls always seemed to have picks nearby as the starving dwarves tried futilely to tunnel their way out, never having the men, the strength or the luck to find a way to open a new passage.
Halvas couldn't tell which he liked less, those caverns where the men and women of the dwarven kingdoms had been trapped and died in desperation, or the ones that were slickened with blight and spider webs, where they would come across broken blades, shattered armor, rotted shields and bones that had the deep scratches of teeth that had gnawed them when all the flesh was gone.
He sometimes wondered what Thedas had been like in the days before the First Blight. Had it been peaceful and prosperous? Had its people lived good lives in safety and security? And what fear must have gripped them when the shadow descended upon their world, corrupting everything that was once good into darkness?
Now, he once more geared himself to walk willingly into that darkness and its taint that he had willingly blackened his own being with in order to become attuned with it, that he might feel it and understand it in order to destroy it, even knowing that it would eventually destroy him and never itself be totally eradicated.
"Do not despair," Halvas said as he took up his shield from Greta. "Commander Evka put you in command here, so you must maintain heart, even when the situation looks bleak. The others look to you now for strength, for hope. As do I."
That erased the frown from Greta's face, transforming it into the smallest smile, and even though it was tinged with sorrow, it was better than nothing. "Thank you, Joiner. I will try."
Halvas pulled his shield across his left arm, wrapping his fingers around the grip and testing its familiar weight. He reached across his body and pulled the axe from its loop at his left hip and put it in his left hand behind the shield, for now, as he readied himself to depart. Ivon came up to them, as always nearly late but always there at just the right time. He had a dwarven sense of time, always knowing the right moment even when he had no sun or clock. The dwarves called that "stone sense," an extrasensory perception of the world, even when they were leagues underground and surrounded by millions of tons of stone on all sides.
"Ready?" Halvas asked his companion of many years.
"Always," Ivon said as he hoisted his heavy hammer onto his shoulder and smirked. He looked well-rested and at ease. Whatever injuries he had sustained at Weisshaupt he either wasn't feeling any more or was hiding better than he had in their march away from the broken fortress. If the music in his head was bothering him, he also didn't show it. "Who's leading?"
"I have the shield," Halvas offered pragmatically.
"Lead on then, Steelshield," Ivon agreed, extending his hand toward the black mouth of the cave before them.
"Be safe," Greta added, doing a better job masking her concern as she said it. "Blow your horn if you're in trouble."
Don't be a hero, Tomasz had told them when he had given the orders. We've got enough of those buried at Weisshaupt.
They were to patrol out, survey the land, take stock of where the blight was and wasn't and how bad, and return safely. They were not to engage any darkspawn, unless it was necessary. The commanders were concerned that what might look like a small roving band on the surface might just be the tip of some swirling hive they couldn't see, and the last thing they needed was a swarm bearing down on weak Lavendel.
"Wardens heading out!" Greta announced as she turned back toward her position atop the wall. The sentries opened the way, allowing Halvas and Ivon over the wooden wall. As soon as he hit the ground, his boots were ankle deep in water that was running through the darkened gullet of the caverns before them.
"Ready?" he asked Ivon, whose feet were sloshing in the pooled water underfoot as he muttered some quiet curse to himself.
"Let's go."
Halvas started forward, keeping his shield up in front of him the entire time he went, with his axe in his right hand back and down low. Ivon had his hammer clutched in both hands across his body, ready to jump into action at the first sign of trouble. They moved slowly and as quietly as possible with their feet skimming through the water.
As they entered the tunnel and it turned slightly left, Halvas turned his head back. The wall at Lavendel and the Wardens behind him was already out of sight. That, he noted mentally, was bad, that any approaching darkspawn belching out of the cavern would be on the wall with little advance warning. The sentries would need to be awake, because even a moment's inattention and they could be overrun.
The caverns were already coated in blighted filth, the ceilings and walls covered in a tangle of blackened tendrils and fleshy boils. The water underfoot was black and stinking, tainted. They'd have to figure out a way to drain or dam up these caverns before that poisoned water started leaking into town and infecting its residents. They came to a fork in the tunnel, one path heading to the left, the other to the right.
"Right," Ivon said quietly from behind him. "The blight feels heavier that way."
Halvas agreed, as his blight sense was pulling him that way too, like whispers twisting down the tunnel and calling them in that direction. He gave one more look down the left path, then turned on his heel and pointed his shield to the right. Ivon came to his back, turning toward the other path to cover their rear in case something came lurching out of the darkness, as he slowly backpedaled behind Halvas' feet.
The blight was so thick here already, choking the once-wide tunnel into a narrow tube of rot. The air was stale and stinking, dead, thick with the scent of the blight and no doubt carrying the taint. He could feel his black blood tingling, alight and pricked with the sensation of the corruption being pulled into his lungs, inert and useless against a Warden, but deadly to anyone unjoined.
As he crept forward, the blight constricting the passage, there was a cracking, crunching noise from the ceiling. Halvas stopped immediately, planting his foot down and pulling his axe up to his side, ready to strike. A clumped ball of blight filth twitched and swung down from the ceiling, dropping in the path in front of them and splashing into the water. Halvas held for a moment, tucked behind his shield, looking at the sphere of corruption. The black twisting ball of blight started to light, the dull pallid, rotting flesh seeming to glow and shine with heat, turning a bright red, like the tendrils and boils of blight that had clamped down on Weisshaupt.
"Back!" Halvas shouted, shuffling his feet backward behind his shield as Ivon moved in tandem so the two didn't tangle and topple one another. The ball of blight before him swelled, the red color intensifying like flame from within. Then, when the red glow grew so intense that it was nearly white, the corrupted ball burst, exploding in a squelching spray of black corruption and chunks of meat. Halvas tucked behind his shield, the exploding giblets and liquid striking the face. The splash off the face of the shield bounced up, a bit of black spittle striking his forehead as it peeked out over the top of his shield.
It was hot, burning his skin, as his right hand came across behind his shield and wiped it off on the back of his sleeve. He swore, shaking his head slightly to flick any else that may be resting on his flesh away as he swore quietly to himself.
"You all right?" Ivon asked from behind him.
"Yeah," he said, noticing the steam coming from the face of his shield as the black, putrid spray liquefied quickly and ran down, dripping into the black water where it sizzled on the cool pool and steamed before disappearing under the surface. "Some kind of blighted mine or bomb. Nearly boiling."
"Glad you're in the front then," Ivon said with a snort, as he didn't carry a shield.
Halvas looked ahead, noticing a few more of those boils hanging in the ceiling, differentiated from the rest of the twisted blight by the slight glowing orange-red color. He lowered his shield, slipping it off his arm as he passed it behind his back. Ivon took it without a word and held it as Halvas dropped the axe back onto his belt. He reached behind him for his shortbow, bringing it around his body and setting an arrow to the string. He drew back, the arms of the bow creaking as the tired wood sprang to life, as he sighted one of the boils down the corridor and let the arrow go.
The grey-fletched arrow struck the bulb in the ceiling, causing it to shudder and fall to the ground. Like the one before, as it plopped into the water, it started to pulse and glow and erupted a moment later, spraying chunks and fluid, this time harmlessly out of range of them.
"Nice work," Ivon said.
Halvas crept forward as he drew and set another arrow to the string, keeping his eyes peeled for any darkspawn that might leap out of the darkness as he was now disarmed for close quarters fighting. When nothing came and when he came up upon another one of those boils in the ceiling, he lifted the bow, bent it and fired, watching the ball pulse, glow and explode.
"I can see the exit," Halvas said, scanning the ceiling for any more of those exploding balls and not finding any. He tucked his bow back behind him, clipping it to the belt as he extended his left arm behind him. Ivon deposited his shield back onto it and he drew his axe one more. "Be ready. It's a wide clearing."
"I've got your back," Ivon said.
They emerged from the mouth of the cave and came to what appeared to be an old crossroads, judging by the wayfinding sign sticking up out of the muck in front of them. The blight was not as heavy here, but back to the north were the signs of destroyed homes. It was hard to tell with all of the flooded water, but as he walked, Halvas thought he could feel a packed road under his feet. He scanned the area, looking for any signs of darkspawn, feeling out with his sixth sense for them, and finding nothing in the immediate area. He lowered his shield and relaxed for a moment, gazing around the clearing between the high cliffs.
Ivon looked off to the north as he lowered his hammer. "Looks like that was destroyed well before the blight showed up."
"Yeah," Halvas agreed. "These people have seen hard times."
"Hard times make hard people here in the Anders," Ivon said. That was clearly true, based on Halvas' time in and around the nation. The Anderfels was full of small, remote villages, always just clinging to life, and yet, the people who lived there would die before they ever considered leaving. It was their land, their home, and no drought, famine or Blight would ever displace them willingly.
There were no darkspawn nearby that he could sense, but there was something else, a tugging on his consciousness, unalike darkspawn but familiar and alluring. He recognized it even though it felt foreign, or because it felt foreign. That was not the usual blight. That was the sound, the sensation of the new blight. He had first felt it at Weisshaupt, as the primordial darkspawn had attacked and as their goddess-twisted tendrils of blight had snaked across the fortifications.
It was a thumping, a drumming, almost like a heartbeat inside his head, strong and steady, the beat underlying some greater symphony. He turned his head toward the south, the pulse coming from that direction, past an archway of stone at the top of a small slope. Whatever it was, it was strong, too strong to be ignored.
"Do you feel that?" Halvas asked Ivon, wondering if his companion sensed it too.
"I was just about to ask you the same thing," the dwarf said. "What is that?"
"I don't know," Halvas said as his feet began to move toward it, even though he didn't remember telling them to walk. Still, once he realized he was heading that way, he didn't stop himself. He instead lifted his shield again and drew back his axe, continuing cautiously along. Ivon was close behind him, judging by the gentle splashing of water as their boots moved through the floodwater.
The sensation grew more intense as he grew closer, the drumming growing louder and clearer, so much so that it almost felt like the ground was vibrating under his feet. His heart started to race, an unbidden excitement that spread out from his chest into his limbs. It was not unlike the feeling he would get when he had been away for a long time and the walls and towers of Weisshaupt came into view over the horizon. It was a homecoming, the relief at a return home, to safety and rest. Yet, whatever it was out there that was pulling them toward it was the almost certainly the opposite of the security of home. The blight on the cliff faces was growing thicker, and it had clumped up so much around the stone archway that it nearly blocked the passage to whatever lay behind.
As Halvas reached the pass, he drew back his arm and hacked with his axe, cutting away chunks of the blighted tentacles that snaked to open a wider entry under the arch. The blackened tendrils and rot fell away and he could almost feel and hear them screaming through his extra perception as they broke apart. When the way was clear enough, Halvas wedged his shield into the opening and gave a push, bursting through to the other side. The shorter Ivon had less issue following him as they stood at the top of the slope.
Before them, tucked in between the cliffs, was what Halvas could tell had once been a verdant grove, but now was overrun with blight that had killed, corrupted and twisted the wooden bones of the trees that remained. The land, like everywhere else, was wet and flooded, as the blight wove up the cliffs and snaked through the branches of the dead trees.
Now with the blighted grove in sight, he could pinpoint where the drumming, the humming was coming from. In the center of the grove was a titan of an old tree, at least a hundred feet high in the air with long, strong, branches now stripped of all their leaves and life. The skeleton tree, however, still stood as a stalwart guardian of the grove, even as its branches now were home to nests of bulbous blight instead of birds, and instead of leaves there were drooping sheets of black filth curling down from the canopy. Whatever was calling them, it was coming from within that tree, and whatever the blight had done to it.
But the tree was not the only sensation that touched his mind as they entered the grove, as he now felt multiple smaller, chittering, buzzes within his blight sense.
"Darkspawn," Halvas said, even though he didn't need to, as he was sure a seasoned warrior like Ivon felt them.
The darkspawn felt them, too, as the shambling corpses that were skulking through the water suddenly raised up, as if they could smell the scent of live flesh on the wind, and turned all at once toward the top of the hill. They screeched and pointed their grey, dead limbs up, calling out in alarm at the intrusion to their blighted grove.
They were answered by a loud roar, a great bellow that shook the limbs of the dead tree, causing the blighted tendrils to sway in the air, as the misshapen gray ogre lumbered out from behind the sentinel tree.
"Shit," Ivon said as he hoisted his hammer and came to Halvas' side.
"We can't let that ogre live," Halvas said. "If it makes its way to Lavendel, it will be a problem."
"Right," Ivon said. "You deal with the little ones. I'll distract the big guy. Just don't leave me hanging out there."
"Be careful," Halvas advised.
Ivon snorted. "I was killing ogres while you were still hugging trees with your elves."
"You're younger than me," Halvas reminded him.
"Yeah, which makes it even more impressive," Ivon boasted with a laugh. "In war, victory!"
"Victory!" Halvas echoed as a battle cry as he reached to his hip, pulled his marpelwood horn and placed it to his lips, blowing out long, deep, clear blast to draw the attention of the darkspawn in the grove. It worked, as they all turned toward him, ignoring Ivon as the dwarf cut a looping path around the right to get around the flank of the ogre. Halvas dropped his axe back at his left hip and passed his shield to his right arm, reaching across his body to pull the sword from his right hip, better for dealing with small, weak spawn like these.
As the first of the monster closed on him, he brushed his thumb across the thick crossguard of the sword, the touch activating the rune that lay in the center of it. As the rune lit, tendrils of flame snaked up the blade, the clean and oiled steel shining brightly as a beacon in the gloom-darkened grove. If these darkspawn feared the flame, they didn't show it as they continued to charge, either too conditioned to kill or too ignorant to know the danger.
The first lunged at him and Halvas timed the strike, throwing his arm out to deflect it at just the right moment, staggering the spawn as it stumbled backward from the impact. Halvas wasted no time following through, stepping forward and bringing the sword heavy over his left shoulder, slashing down and through the monster, striking its ribs and separating it on a diagonal as the flaming sword tore out the opposite side hip. As the tip of his sword touched down onto the ground, he stopped and tore his momentum back to his left side, a heavy horizontal slash that crushed another darkspawn that was coming on top of him before it had a chance to extend its claws to strike. It wailed as it was thrown away, engulfed in flame, thrashing wildly until the fire consumed it and it splashed down into the black water with a hiss.
Halvas picked up his gait, ducking behind his shield as he charged forward into the grove, lining up the next darkspawn in his way and driving it down, using the shield to batter it back until he smashed into and trampled over it, stepping down hard with his plated boot to crush the rotted skull beneath his heel as if he were crushing eggs underfoot. He drew his shield out to his side, closing on the next, bringing it across his body and using the edge to smash into the flank of the next in line, knocking it down to the ground where his sword quickly followed, piercing its chest and twisting, tearing diseased flesh.
These new blighted spawn were weaker than a hurlock, less durable than a genlock and slower than a shriek. As he had cut through their horde at Weisshaupt, holding the line for as long as he could to buy the Wardens a chance to escape, the danger in them came not from their actual prowess but simply from their numbers. They were a horde, a swarm, their strength in numbers and the hope of overwhelming their opponent. But one at a time, Halvas could stand and pick them apart one by one almost indefinitely, he felt.
He pushed down the slope and deeper into the grove, slaying the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth. He had cleared a path to where the ogre was engaged with Ivon, the giant beast bellowing as it threw clumps of exploding rot at the dwarf, who rolled out of the way and continued circling the grove, keeping enough space between him and the great beast.
"Ogre!" Halvas called out as he drew his right arm back, loosening his grip on his shield and whipping it forward, the heavy kite spinning in air like a disc as it struck the flank of the monster, causing it to turn and regard its new foe. Free of the shield, Halvas reached back down to his left side, hoisting the axe into his now-empty right hand.
The ogre took the bait, lowering its horned head and turning its back to Ivon. It charged forward toward Halvas, just as fast and reckless as any traditional ogre. He waited, judging the speed and the distance, and when the moment was upon him, he dodged right, raking across the left side of the ogre with his flaming sword and leaving a deep gash along its side.
The ogre crashed into one of the rotted trees, exploding the stump into splinters and roared, turning back and leaping, its giant, heavy fists over its head. Halvas stepped back out of the way as the ogre crashed down in front of him, shaking the ground, as he swung out his fiery sword in front of him, not with any intent to strike but merely to keep the gap between them. The ogre straightened and roared, drawing its right arm back at the shoulder to lay down a heavy punch at him. But as he bent back, he had forgotten about the smaller dwarf on the field.
Ivon drew back his heavy hammer and swung hard, the blunt two-hander smashing into the back of the ogre's left knee. The impact caused the joint to buckle with a sickening crunch, causing the ogre to stagger and fall forward as it could no longer stand on the shattered limb. As it fell down into the muck, using its arms to catch it before it fell completely, Halvas knew his opening and darted in, driving the axe into the downed left arm. The ogre recoiled in pain at the hard blow, drawing its torso up from the ground, just high enough to give Halvas access underneath it as he pointed the tip of his sword up and drove it into the soft flesh of the neck, slamming the sword forward until it buried down to the hilt. The flames flared around the open wound, scorching the throat as the ogre flailed, trying to grab at the blade wedged in it.
Before it could find the hilt of the blade as Halvas rolled backward, now bereft of both his weapons he left wedged in the ogre's flesh, Ivon bounded up the back of the beast as if he were scaling stone until he stood behind the shoulders.
The dwarf pulled his heavy hammer up over his head and roared as he slammed it down, smashing through the ogre's skull and exploding its blood, brains and eyes out of the front of its head. The ogre toppled to the ground, Ivon skillfully maintaining his balance on its back as it fell to the ground and bounced with a splash as it hit the water.
The dwarf lifted his hammer and smashed it down again, crushing what was left of the ogre's skull, just to ensure that it was dead.
Halvas measured his breaths, coming out on the other side of the battle. His hand was on the knife at his belt as he scanned the grove, looking for other darkspawn. He saw none. His blight sense felt none. The only thing he could sense was the constant drumming beat of the blighted tree and nothing else.
Ivon dismounted the ogre and splashed down into the black water, shaking his hammer to try to rid the face of the bits of ogre blood and bone that clung to it. He dipped it under the surface of the water and agitated it, pulling it up clean. He gave a satisfied nod and threw the hammer back over his shoulder.
As Halvas watched, the ogre before them had almost instantly started to liquefy, losing its structure and dissociating into black sludge as if it were ice left out in the sun on a scorching day. As it fell apart, nearly gone after less than half a minute, Halvas' weapons sank in the muck until they slipped under the water. The flame rune extinguished as the sword hit the flood and submerged under the surface.
"That's unsettling," Ivon said as Halvas stepped forward cautiously, reaching down into the water to retrieve his weapons.
"These darkspawn are strange," Halvas said. "It's almost like they're barely formed, barely corporeal. Did you see at Weisshaupt how they just rose out of those pools of blight?"
"Yeah," Ivon said with a shudder. "That's not right. I know where darkspawn come from. I've seen it, watched genlocks come sliding out of a broodmother's twat before. Enough to give a man nightmares for life, Steelshield, but that's where the 'spawn come from. At least where they're supposed to come from."
"And when you kill them, they leave a body," Halvas said, glancing back to where he had slain the smaller ones. There were no corpses, no sign that he had cut his way through anything at all.
Halvas went to go collect his shield, sheathing his weapons as he picked up his guard and slipped it back onto his left arm. He looked around the rocks and at the dead trees around them again. But the great tree beckoned, beating in his mind. He walked around the grove for a bit, trying to ignore it, noticing that there were other passages heading out of the low area.
"We should be getting back, Ivon," Halvas said. "Wildswalker will want to know about the ogre, and this tree."
There was no answer, only quiet in the grove, and the thumping in his head. "Ivon?"
Still no answer. Halvas picked up his pace, walking back out to the clearing, where he spotted Ivon sitting on a stone outcrop, his hammer resting down on the ground, and his neck craned upward toward the branches of the great tree. His mouth hung slightly open as he stared blankly up at its corrupted canopy.
"Ivon," Halvas called out for a third time, a bit louder and more directly. That caused the dwarf to snap out of his head and turn to regard him.
"Huh?" Ivon asked, sounding almost disoriented.
"What are you doing?" Halvas asked, his curiosity growing. It wasn't like Ivon to suddenly lose focus, especially not in the middle of a battlefield. Although it was clear for the moment, this wasn't a safe place.
"I was just looking at this tree," Ivon said, lifting a finger to point at its barren and blighted boughs.
"What about it?" Halvas asked, looking at the tree again, but not seeing anything that would draw his attention like that.
"Just," Ivon said, craning his neck up again, his eyes sweeping over it. "It's beautiful."
"It's covered in blight, Ivon," Halvas reminded him. It might have been beautiful once, when the land was clean and the sky was clear and it bore a full crown of leaves. But now, it was just a skeleton, covered in lumps of rot and sheets of filth.
"Is it?" Ivon said, his mouth falling slightly open in what looked like awe.
"Yeah, don't you see it?" Halvas asked, suddenly growing more concerned for his friend as the pulsing in his head grew suddenly more apparent. Behind it, he could hear that music, the sound of the blight, calling him. Halvas tried to push it out of his head, wanting to get out of this grove, now, as quickly as possible.
"Hmmm," Ivon said, sounding as if he didn't see it. "Still, it's beautiful to me."
"We need to get back, before the others come looking for us," Halvas said.
Ivon didn't move, as he still looked at the tree, entranced by it. Even as Halvas walked over, up next to him, he didn't turn his head away from the dead boughs. Halvas turned his head up toward where Ivon was looking and could hear the heartbeat in his head. It was low and slow, steady and even, and somewhat comforting. He suddenly felt the urge to sit, to just take a moment to rest in the shadow of its limbs.
As he started to lower himself to the stone shelf where Ivon was sitting, his hand brushed against the horn at his hip, the marpelwood horn that sounded with the deep, proud call of the halla. Blow your horn if you're in trouble. The memory of Greta's warning crossed his consciousness and he recoiled, standing back up. He looked up at the tree, seeing the pulsing clumps of blight stuck in its branches, the black rot that stretched over the bark. The drumming seemed to grow in volume in his head, as if it rose to try to beat other thought out of his head.
"Ivon," Halvas said again, his hand reaching down to shake the dwarf violently by the shoulder. "We need to get away from this tree. Now."
The dwarf's mouth twitched and his eyes narrowed, as if he was thinking about resisting, but then gave his head a shake and stood up, picking up his heavy hammer. He spared one more look at the great tree, then gestured with his thumb back toward the archway that brought them into the grove and started to walk.
The thrumming in their heads grew weaker as they climbed back up the slope, ducked under the arch and headed back toward Lavendel.