Four

Halvas tried to ignore the buzz in the air as the rest of the Wardens fawned over Thorne as he arrived in town.

He had stopped to talk with Evka and Antoine when he first arrived, surveyed the Grey Warden camp, talked with Holden and his daughter Mila, and then set out around Lavendel to get a lay of the land. Some of the other Wardens were following him around like newborn puppies, yipping at his heels. Halvas shook his head at them as the young Wardens went in tow, and instead stayed focused on the edge of his sword as he honed the blade.

The sword had been getting plenty of use over the last few days, as it sheared through darkspawn on just about every patrol they set out on. The blight didn't seem like it was encroaching any further toward the town at the moment, which was a good news both for their survival and the survival of the townsfolk, but at the same time, no matter how many darkspawn they put down, when they went out the next day, it was as if nothing had happened the day before. No one could figure out where they were coming from – they weren't coming from some crevice or crack or Deep Roads entrance because there were none around on any maps or charts of the Anders and no one had seen anything within a five-mile radius of Lavendel.

Halvas had reported how the darkspawn seemed to just emerge from the pools of blight and how, when killed, they seemed to liquefy right back into it. He wasn't the only one who had noticed that either, as the other Wardens who were out battling the darkspawn every day had seen it too. If this was some type of new blight and if the darkspawn were capable of forming from the pools of the taint, then would there ever be an end to them? Or, Halvas and the others he had talked to had wondered, if you killed enough of them, would they eventually exhaust whatever raw material was spawning them? They had no definitive answer to that question yet.

It had become clear after less than a week in the Lavendel marshes that the glowing red boils that swelled up from the ground were important. As long as they remained, it seemed as if the darkspawn had no end – one of the other scouting parties had fought them for nearly an hour, testing the hypothesis, before fatigue threatened to overwhelm them and they burst the blighted boil. Once it was gone, the darkspawn stopped too. That was an important discovery and a good sign that gave them hope of ending this blight. That was, until they went out the next day and found another one of those boils on the moors in a different location, still belching more darkspawn around it.

Halvas and Ivon always found more darkspawn in the blighted grove. The darkspawn seemed to be drawn there, the same way that the tree seemed to beckon to the two of them to come to it. Ivon, in particular, was almost completely entranced by the tree. On the positive side, he fought like an absolute demon to purge the grove of any darkspawn that were lingering there, with a fury in his eyes and the swing of his hammer that spoke of his intense hatred. On the negative side, whenever they cleared the grove, his gaze would turn toward the tree and it was growing increasingly difficult to tear him away from it.

More concerning was the fact that Halvas had managed to convince Greta to come with him one afternoon, after their patrol had cleared the area, to show her. When they entered the grove and Halvas pointed out the tree to her and asked what she thought, all she could say was that she saw a tall, dead tree, sick with blight. When he had asked if she sensed anything unusual from it, she said no. When he asked if he she thought the tree was beautiful, as Ivon often called it, she scrunched her face in confusion and asked if he was feeling well. He shook off the question, thanked her, and quickly returned to their stronghold.

Later that night, he had sought out Augustin, who the younger wardens affectionately called "Gramps." Augustin was a mage from Starkhaven and had joined the Wardens after the Circle tower there burned in 9:31. He was a senior enchanter in the tower at the time and, when the fire that destroyed the tower had started and many of the young mages had escaped, the Templars accused him of aiding them despite the fact that he had not fled and immediately turned himself over to the Chantry. He had been imprisoned pending an investigation, when the Wardens came to Starkhaven from an expedition into the Deep Roads under the Marches. Their leader was a savvy recruiter and always took time to stroll the local prison block to see who was locked up there, and a fifty-year-old senior enchanter from the Circle certainly caught his eye. He invoked the Rite of Conscription and rescued Augustin from Templar injustice, although the price in exchange was his life in service to the Wardens. For a man who was aware of what the Blight had just done to the south in Ferelden, he took the cup gladly.

That put Augustin at more than twenty years with the Wardens, and although he had missed the Fifth Blight just barely, the taint was more likely to quicken in him due to his advanced age. There was no exact time limit for one to experience their Calling – some barely made twenty years and some lucky ones might make it to thirty, although around twenty-five seemed to be a general average – and so Halvas had gone to him, discreetly, to ascertain whether he, too, might have started to hear the call of the blight.

The old man had taken no time at all to see through Halvas' awkward questioning, although he swore to keep the secret to himself. A Warden's Calling was their own business, not a matter for gossip among his peers, and each man had to come to terms with it themself and decide their course of action. Halvas thanked him for it, but the old man was able to offer little more than his silence and his sympathy. Despite having crossed seventy years of age, Augustin pledged that he had felt no sign of the call yet. That being said, he was well-attuned to the sensation of the blight, and he was more than willing to share that what he felt out among the wetlands was so unalike the blight he had felt for the entirety of his two decades of service.

Without walking into the center of town and announcing to all of his comrades that he was experiencing the early signs of his Calling, Halvas was left at an impasse. Outside of Ivon, he wasn't aware of anyone else in camp who was suffering the growing pull of the taint and, therefore, had no way to further test his curiosity about the blighted tree in the grove.

He had considered asking Tomasz to reassign Ivon, to get him away from that grove, but had decided against it. He knew Wildswalker would want a reason why, and Halvas wouldn't be able to give one without betraying his friend's secret. So, they continued to range out day after day, patrolling the caves, the old crossroads and the blighted grove, before circling back and returning to Lavendel.

That left Halvas at the east wall, sharpening his blade, watching as Rook went from house to house, talking to the townsfolk and stopping to check their meager shops. As Rook stopped to talk to Ilona, their quartermaster, and check her collection of accessories for anything that might aid him, Halvas managed to lock eyes with the only other Warden who traveled with him as part of his self-styled "Veilguard."

"Anath ara, lethalin," Halvas called out as the man approached, greeting him in the elvish tongue. "Halvas, of Clan Ista."

"Davrin," the Warden introduced himself, without a clan name, although Halvas already knew him by reputation. "I've heard of that name. You're the one they call 'Elfhorn,' right?"

Halvas turned his hip slightly to show the marpelwood horn that rested there as he paused from sharpening his blade. "And many other things. Although I wonder what they'll call you, as I hear you were the one who killed Razikale."

Davrin shifted uncomfortably but didn't back down from the accomplishment. "I did."

"And you're not dead," Halvas said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Don't know," Davrin said.

The answer was honest. When there was a Blight, it was the duty of the Wardens to fight it, to hunt and kill the archdemon. Only a Warden was capable of killing an archdemon. When that final blow struck, when the life left the corrupted dragon and the taint sought a new host, the corruption destroyed the Warden it reached. So how did Davrin strike a killing blow against Razikale and live to tell about it?

Nothing about this Blight was right. Everything was upside down.

"How's working with Thorne?" Halvas asked instead, changing the subject.

"An adventure," Davrin said, looking over his shoulder. "And not always a good one."

"Keep him grounded," Halvas said. "I've trained a lot of young Wardens who felt like they were invincible. Most of them didn't live to see Weisshaupt fall, for better or worse."

Halvas had heard stories about his younger days as a Warden. Davrin had come to the Wardens with a reputation as a monster hunter. He had some good kills in his days after wandering abroad from his clan, and that might have given a young fighter a big head and a bigger mouth – like Thorne – but Davrin had approached his duty with the Wardens with a sense of humility and purpose. He didn't join the Wardens to seek glory. He joined the Wardens to protect people from the dark and scary things in the world. That was the right reasoning to adopt at the right time.

Halvas himself, well, he wished he had been as mature in his youth, when the Wardens put the cup to his mouth and when he drank it to gain its power. That he had made it this far he might once have attributed to the protection of the goddess, except now he knew Ghilan'nain for the monster and imposter that she was.

"I'll try," Davrin said. He might have even meant it, Halvas thought, even though he suspected the job of corralling in Rook was an impossible one.

Halvas might like to get Thorne under his wing for a year, drag him through the most wretched holes the Anderfels could provide and see how much arrogance he had when he emerged having not seen the sun for months, half-starved and covered in a permanent sheen of darkspawn blood and shit. That might fix his attitude and give him a little more perspective about the seriousness of his duties. He had gotten away with being reckless and playing the hero a few times before, but that kind of luck always caught up with a person, usually somewhere between an ogre's fist and the ground and with the sounds of crunching and squishing in the middle of it.

Unfortunately that was time Halvas knew he now didn't have, even if he could have found a way to shackle Rook to his wrist.

Halvas looked and noticed that Rook was talking to Greta – they had been joined at nearly the same time, and were peers – and shot a disapproving glare in their direction but didn't say anything. When Davrin followed his gaze and saw that Rook was moving on, he offered his farewell.

"Duty calls."

"Davrin," Halvas called as his fellow Warden turned away. The Dalish monster hunter turned back. His vallaslin was in a slightly different style, but he wore Ghilan'nain's mark on his face too. Halvas wondered what the revelation might be doing to him, but didn't have time to probe it. "Good work at Weisshaupt. Stay safe out there."

"I'll try," he offered and then went to rejoin his companion.

When Davrin left, Greta came over to replace him, smiling and laughing to herself. It was good to see her smiling, although he didn't care for the fact that it was because of Rook. She was a good Warden, with a good head and a good heart. He was the type of person she needed to stay away from.

"How's the boy hero?" Halvas said as he ran the whetstone across the edge of the blade once more and lifted it up, eyeing it in the dim and the firelight, before resting it back across his lap.

"As confident in himself as the day we met," Greta said with a chuckle.

"Overconfident, some would say," Halvas said as he slipped the sword back into its sheath and set it aside. That kind of overconfidence always ended up with the boy thinking he was going to end up a hero in a bard's heroic epic but usually ended up with his name in a funeral dirge.

"Some like you?" Greta asked with a smirk.

"Yes, some like me," Halvas said with little humor. "You'd be smart to avoid him."

"Everyone else around Lavendel seems smitten with him," Greta said.

"Everyone else hasn't seen dozens like Rook dead in the Deep Roads because they couldn't listen to people older and more experienced than them," Halvas reminded her.

He didn't need to lecture her. Even if she remembered better days as acolytes with Thorne, she hadn't followed in his footsteps. She had been a good student and respected the chain of command. It was why she had a posting as lieutenant here and the trust of every Warden who served to her left and right as opposed to living out what was effectively a banishment. When the Wardens recovered from this disaster, he expected she would have a bright future in its leadership. The song in the back of his head reminded him, however, that he wouldn't be around to see it.

"What's Rook doing out there anyway?" Halvas asked. The Wardens had the area secured. They didn't need Thorne out there running around stirring up any trouble, since trouble seemed to follow him wherever he went.

"He's gathering some kind of samples for Antoine. He's almost got a blight lab going up there in the fort. Jars filled with all kinds of disturbing things," she shuddered at the thought. "Rook was also going to head up to Gaspin Manor. That local, Bastien, was talking his ear off."

"That place is cursed," Halvas said with a snort. Some of the Wardens had gone out there and ran afoul of demons, not darkspawn, and turned home. They had enough problems without tinkering with twisted spirits and a weak Veil. But it was exactly like Thorne to hear about such a place and then go rushing headfirst into it.

"He's convinced he'll solve the mystery," Greta said with an amused smirk as she halfway rolled her eyes. Halvas cracked the smallest of smiles at that, at least.

In his younger days with the Dalish, Halvas was not so different. He learned the only way cocky adventurers ever learned better – the hard way.

When he had taken that Joining cup, when he had felt the strength of the Wardens coursing in his veins, he had been ready to sweep the Hunterhorns and kill any and every darkspawn he could find. He was ready to descend into the Deep Roads, hunt their nests and destroy them. But the senior Wardens who had joined him and who had counseled him had held him back – much to his frustration at the time – and showed him what being a Grey Warden was truly about. It was not about slaughtering darkspawn. It was about vigilance, about patience, about strength in wisdom rather than solely in strength of arms. They had kept him safe, kept him alive.

They had forged him into the Warden he was today, a Warden who had lived long enough to reach his Calling.

Halvas took up his shield and set it across his knees, picking up his dirty rag and pouring a little of the metal polish into it. The old shield was as beaten up and scarred as his face, but while he was certainly not winning any beauty contests nowadays, the least he could do for the old guard that had kept him safe all these years was to make it look as nice as it could, despite its condition.

The shield was a mark of pride for him. It was an emblem to those young Wardens, an icon that spoke of the duty they had forsworn, a symbol of strength for any who laid eyes upon it. The many scratches and dings in its face told the story of what being a Warden meant, to stand before the enemy and never falter, never surrender, to shield the nations of Thedas from the darkspawn and never break. As he wiped its face, scrubbing off the darkspawn filth from the steel and shining it back into the beacon that it was, he pondered what might become of it when he was gone. Should he carry it with him to his final reckoning, or should he bequeath it to another, someone who would understand and uphold the legacy it had written on his arm?

He set the thought aside for now. Those were dark thoughts, and Lavendel was dark enough without pondering such weighty questions.

"Have you seen Ivon?" Halvas asked. "Missed him at breakfast. We've got a patrol at dusk and I haven't seen him. Usually he's down at the forge with a bottle bothering Clara, but she hasn't seen him today either, which is odd."

"Haven't seen him," Greta said. "I'll keep an eye out though."

That didn't sit well with him, especially as he could feel the pulling in the back of his mind. His patrol was growing near and it was almost as if the blighted tree could sense the hour and knew that he was coming. The drumming in the distance could almost prickle the skin on the back of his neck.

He could feel an unease in the taint today, strange as all things with this blight were. While normally the darkspawn and the blight felt uniform, a single collective made up of the drones and the corruption that sustained them, since coming to Lavendel it had felt like there were several competing conversations, overlapping and fighting one another. Sometimes they almost seemed to align in harmony, while other times they intersected and clashed with each other so much that it could almost elicit pain to try to listen in to it. While a Warden could tune in to the consciousness of the darkspawn, to track their movements or trace them back to their nest or broodmother, trying that in the wetlands seemed to lead nowhere. You could follow one thread and find it leading to nowhere significant, or to lose the trail midway along while following it only to feel another path pulsing strongly in a wildly different direction, only for it to suddenly and inexplicably disappear.

One constant Halvas had felt was the tree, always thrumming, always beckoning, always pulling toward the blighted grove. But even then, Greta had not felt it at all, while Ivon could barely tear himself away from it.

The only other constant in his life now was the quiet music, sweet but distant, never going away but growing a little louder and more prominent every day. Even as he wiped his shield, he found his arm moving in rhythm with it, the swish swish of the rag following the ups and downs of the song, even when he recognized it and tried to stop, he could only delay it for a time before he fell back into its ebb.

And the question, now rising to the forefront of his mind – where was Ivon?