"Well, it's not every day one gets a preview of one's untimely death," Alistair said, "What do you think, Ten? Would you prefer to be splattered against that wall or that one?"

"Leave me out of this one. I told you I'm going out on my own terms," Ten muttered. She had never particularly cared for the underground but tolerated Orzammar because, at the end of the day, it was a city and cities she understood. This, though, the caverns so high she could not see the ceiling, the roads which would have let thirty men march abreast, and the dark abyss on either side… it left her with a sinking feeling in the base of her spine that she did not enjoy.

They had set out from the Orzammar Commons after one bell one day once Ten deemed herself sufficiently recovered from both beating and slime mold and mostly wanted to get the whole damned thing over with. They'd walked for… who even knew how long, but after passing through two different areas which Oghren referred to as 'thaigs,' they had come to a spot where camping made sense, in a dead-end tunnel where they could not be snuck up on. It had the added feature of a stream of water that was largely safe to drink cascading down one wall. There was the small matter of clearing out a nest of spiders, the smallest of which came up to Ten's knee, but there were six of them, if one was to count the hound, and all in all, they had a much better grasp on the concept of fire.

"How is it left to me to be the ray of sunshine?" Morrigan mused, feeding another enormous spider leg to the fire. She had found the whole thing fascinating, stopping to peer at every other boulder, once turning into a lizard to investigate a hole in the wall about thirty feet up. The fire was thanks to another one of her stunts, this one in bat form, concluding that the crack in the ceiling led up to a larger cavern where she could feel cold air, so it was probably safe to light one.

"I suspect it's in your nature to enjoy that which is most foul," Ten said.

"If that were true, our new friend wouldn't be giving me the silent treatment," the witch said.

Oghren was not actually giving her the silent treatment. He had managed to go several hours before he finally cracked and said something completely out of pocket, at which point Morrigan - who had been waiting for the opportunity - had promptly turned into a bear and pinned him to the ground hard enough to break his right arm in the process. She had then told him she would heal it if he behaved until they made camp next. The dwarf took this to mean he should just not say anything, a decision the rest of the party wholeheartedly endorsed.

"Just put his arm back together, will you?" Ten sighed, feeling a little sorry for the man, who was more humiliated than he was hurt at this point. "He's sorry."

"And here I thought you were the bane of creepy men the world over," Morrigan said.

"I'm not excusing his behavior, but we probably won't make it through the night without a visit from something trying to kill us, and he's a better warrior with two working arms."

"So I should just let it go?"

"I didn't say that. Next time, just break something he doesn't need in a fight."

"And that's the end of that conversation," Alistair interrupted before Ten could start listing expendable body parts.

"Are all the women on the surface like these two?" Oghren asked but let Morrigan close enough to work her magic on his swollen elbow. She backed off immediately, retreating to the back of the tunnel where she had managed to rig up a cross between a hammock and a cocoon against the wall by manipulating the spider silk left by the previous occupants. She wriggled inside and sealed it behind her with a fibrous squelch, signaling to all involved that she was unavailable for the foreseeable. Ten was a little bit jealous, as she always did whenever she saw one of the mages do something interesting, but settled on being grateful that they were out of the weather.

"Are women down here not?" Alistair asked.

"Depends on the caste. A Warrior'll break worse than your arm. A Miner will have her brother do it. Smith'll just ignore you and go on about her business. It's not my fault she looks like a Merchant. They're much more receptive," Oghren said almost wistfully. He flexed his newly mended arm and then promptly used it to uncork a jug of whiskey he had stashed somewhere and show off its strength by drinking right from it. Before Ten could reconsider her appraisal of him, he continued, "I guess I'm not complaining. I love a strong woman. Between us," he was looking at Alistair collusively when he said this but did so loud enough for everyone else to hear, "I've been at half-mast this whole time."

"Oghren, we are actually still in mixed company," Alistair said, treading the line between making the dwarf stop making everyone uncomfortable and avoiding getting another beating.

"Bah, she barely counts," Oghren scoffed, gesturing with the jug at Ten, drops of whiskey flying everywhere, one sending a small flare up.

"Just give it a rest. Please."

Ten turned her attention to her portable little pharmacy and considered what might end this conversation for good: "Pass that over here, will you? You could at least drink from a cup like a civilized person."

"We're camping in a cave we stole from a nest of giant spiders, warming ourselves next to their burning corpses. I don't know what you think civilized has to do with anything," Oghren muttered but passed her the jug and let her pour some out into a tin cup. He did not stop her or see that she had stealthily added a couple of drops of an infusion that she had not had to use in months. Oghren, unfamiliar with Ten's history, had no reason to suspect anything untoward, especially when she took a sip before handing him the cup, confirming that the flavor was masked behind the stiff bite of distilled rye.

"Barkeep's tax," she said, by way of an explanation, handing him the cup, letting him drink deeply, "So tell me, Oghren, you have spent the last two years fighting to be allowed to find your missing wife and somehow dragged all of us down here with you. Where does making a pass at a strange human woman come into play?"

"I'm married, not dead," Oghren said, "You wouldn't understand. Suffice it to say that it's not like you people do it, all sodding nonsense with the long drawn out sighs and… flower garlands and all that… nonsense."

"Try me," Ten said.

"Well, first of all, it wasn't my idea to marry Branka," Oghren said, "Certainly wasn't her idea to marry me. Our families decided, and, well, there we were."

"Tale as old as time, one I've starred in myself. But… that excuses trying to get a bit on the side, not being a public menace to everything female except me and the dog," Ten said.

Oghren looked up at her from his cup with a new interest, "Not so naive after all, I see." His eyes, this time, stayed on her face, and he squinted at her as though trying to discern something he could read there, "So you've got some poor sap back at home you're making a fool of, eh?"

"And what if I did?"

"I'd tell you that despite whatever you tell yourself that lets you sleep at night while you're lying next to another man, what he doesn't know still hurts him," Oghren let his gaze return to the fire at this last bit, "Drives him to drink. To self-destruction. To…"

Ten scoffed, "To getting your arm broken by a bear?"

"Reminding myself I'm still a man," Oghren replied, not looking up.

"Well, if it makes you feel better, the poor sap's been dead for the better part of a year, and if he weren't, I wouldn't even be here, and none of this would have shaken out the way it did."

"Ah. My condolences then," Oghren said, looking back up, "So how'd that happen?"

She sighed and went through a brief version of it. Just the bare bones. Arranged marriage. Abduction. Dead husband. Mass murder. There was no need for him to know about Shianni's involvement or the details of Bann Vaughan's death.

"So then you understand exactly why I'm here," the dwarf said at the conclusion. He'd reached the bottom of the cup and poured himself another, which had made his already ruddy cheeks ruddier and put a bit of a slur in his voice, "You didn't love him. You didn't know him. But… you… you respected him. You were his wife, and you did right by him, even to the point of getting yourself locked up and condemned. So that's what I'm doing. Branka is… well, she is who she is, and whatever she's done, she's my wife, and I have an obligation to her. Other women have nothing to do with anything."

She thought momentarily about what would have happened if fate had decreed it be Nelaros to burst into the room where she and her bridesmaids were being held and Soris, who had gotten a sword through him. She still would have turned herself in. She wouldn't have involved Villais, which probably would have kept him from nosing about into the Tevinter matter, so he would still be in Denerim, if not on the force. Duncan would still have come for her in the dungeons. She still would have wound up at Ostagar. And in the meantime, what? Would Nelaros just be, what, living in her flat with Shianni? No, that would have been scandalous. He'd have to have bunked in with her father, working at her uncle's forge, waiting for a wife he didn't even know to come home from the war. Would she have seen him all the times she snuck into the Alienage? She probably would have, if only out of obligation. Or would he have left, like Valora left, realizing how far from what he signed up for this was…

And the other part… well, I really can't see Alistair going after another man's wife, even if he really wanted to. She looked sidelong at him. He was lost in his own thoughts, his hands absently stirring the dust at his feet with one hand and his eyes on the blue center of the fire. And as for me… she had not really had the time to yearn when it came to Alistair. I would have figured it out eventually, though. And then I wouldn't have been able to stop thinking about it, and at some point, I definitely would have gotten drunk and let something slip, and he'd have said something along the lines of 'it's not right, you're married,' and then we'd both feel terrible and… well I suppose it would have to be one for the ballads. The sad kind where nobody gets what they want and then everyone dies.

"It's not like that at all. Nelaros - that was his name, by the way - is dead," said Ten, shaking this line of thought out of her head, "And this whole expedition is premised on the idea that Branka is alive. So take a break, will you?"

"Heh. Well, you certainly nag like a woman. I'll give you that," Oghren admitted, "And if I go to sleep now, I can take whatever watch the one with tits does."

"So she can break your other arm?" Ten snorted, "Go to sleep, Oghren. And leave the whiskey."

Oghren yawned, gave her the finger, and went to where he had set up his bedroll behind a large boulder. There were no tents to be had among the general stores of Orzammar. Then again, why would they need them? No rain underground, no dew. All the creepy crawlies she had seen were far too large to burrow into one's ear. Although, one thing tents did afford was a modicum of privacy.

"Maybe we ought to go let Sten off the hook," Alistair said, "Let him get some rest. It's almost our turn anyway."

Sten had insisted on remaining at the mouth of their little cul de sac in case some roving bands of darkspawn happened upon them. In their journey so far, they had not encountered any, but there was evidence of their presence. The crumbling halls that had once been gleaming dwarven cities were home to ad hoc campsites, what looked like mess halls, and forges, but all appeared abandoned for some time. That said… the ubiquitous giant spiders must have had something to prey on, and Ten had seen deepstalkers - most of which just left them alone - skillfully avoid their webs.

As they left earshot of the camp, Alistair added, "I mostly wanted to get away in case he was going to… take care of himself."

"Ugh," Ten gagged, "Well, he'll be sorely disappointed if he tries for the next couple of days."

"Why?"

"I drugged his whiskey," Ten said.

"With what?"

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"I don't like it when you say that."

"Fine, if you must know, it was a concentrated infusion of a vine commonly called Sully's creeper, " Ten said, "It was originally used to treat heart palpitations."

"You say originally like there's another use for it."

"It… has a certain side effect on men specifically that made it very, very useful for women in subservient positions."

"When are the lessons on exactly how terrible the world is going to stop?"

"When you die."

They had by now reached the spot where the tunnel opened onto the broader road. Sten was perched on a boulder by the entrance, his red eyes scanning the room in a circle. He did not look at them as they approached but acknowledged their presence with a grunt. "There is nothing to report," he announced. All is peaceful at the moment."

"Good news for a change," Alistair remarked, "You should go eat something and get some rest."

"Very well," Sten said, "I will… position myself between the young lady and the dwarf."

"Morrigan can take care of herself," Ten said.

"It's not her I'm worried about," Sten said.

"You're really leaning into the whole 'peacemaker' persona," Ten observed approvingly.

"We have a task," Sten said, "And it will require all of us to be in good form."

He nodded at them and went back down the tunnel. Ten clambered up onto the boulder. There really wasn't much to see. There were four places where anyone trying to end them would have to come through - the end of the road they'd come from, the one they would go the next day, and two entrances to a horseshoe tunnel about two miles long they had explored and found nothing within but an abandoned campsite. Oghren had said it could have belonged to any number of explorers. Each of these was plainly visible from where they were.

The other two were at either end of this cavern, where the road followed under a dwarfmade opening at either end. These were not very well lit, but while the road itself was wide enough for a host to march through unimpeded, these chokepoints would likely only accommodate four or five abreast. They would feel a horde of a size they could not deal with a good while off, and, not being very intelligent beings, the bottleneck would confuse them and slow them down enough for the cavalry to arrive. And Pigeon - who had been asleep with her head in Sten's lap, the only time she didn't look comically large compared to whomever she was using as a pillow - would certainly smell them first and kick up a fuss. The hound reluctantly moved when the qunari rose, turned thrice in a circle, and threw herself on her side, her bulk nearly blocking the entire tunnel. Alistair squatted by her side momentarily, bestowing the exactly three belly rubs the hound would accept before getting tired of it, then approached and leaned against the boulder Ten was seated on.

"Tell me, Ten," he said, "Do you really think that Hanne's Lord Harrowmont's n-... I can't say it. 'Niece' sounds so very wrong."

"I think either they are, or they knew Hanyeshka, knew she joined the Legion of the Dead, and took her name and story to the surface."

"And if that's the case, you'll still listen to the prince? Even though he's… well, you met him, I didn't, but it sounds like his reputation as a backstabber is well-earned."

"I hate that we're in this position," Ten admitted, "But think about it, if being a decent person made you fit to rule and being a duplicitous maniac didn't, you'd be back in Denerim learning the most effective ways to keep peace among the gentry and I'd be having this conversation with someone else."

"I just can't help but think there's got to be a better way to do things."

"Oh, I'm sure there is, but I'm also sure it'll never be implemented in my lifetime, which my presence here has reminded me will not be nearly as long as I'd once thought it would be."

"Well, we've both managed to dodge the executioner a few times," Alistair said, "Maybe we'll dodge this too." He gestured at the caverns around them.

"I suppose anything could happen," Ten said, casting her eyes about the cavern again, the road disappearing into the distance on each end, the small tunnels on the other side. There were a couple of holes in the wall, but neither were large enough for anything too dangerous to come out of. The vast and empty silence into which their voices were all but swallowed up, "And it's not like we had any choice in the matter."

"I actually did," Alistair said quietly.

Ten looked at him in surprise, "You what?"

"It was my only way out of the Chantry. I figured I'd rather have a handful of years doing something decent than forty or fifty slowly becoming someone I didn't recognize. The whole… abbreviated lifespan I sort of rationalized as my penance for my part in every awful thing the Templars do."

"You do not like them, do you."

"You don't know what goes on in there."

"Because you won't tell me."

"I kind of like you seeing me as a decent person. Makes me think I actually might be getting there."

"Congratulations, you have the approval of a mass murderer."

"What you've done is certainly the stuff of nightmares, but I don't think you've ever acted out of cruelty. And it's like you said. Being good means getting your hands dirty. Anyway, this isn't so bad, is it?" his tone fell back into its usual flippancy, "The weather's decent. It doesn't smell like anything. We haven't encountered anything worse than spiders the size of cows and turkey-lizard-lampreys, which are a little strange the first time you see one, but they grow on you."

"I don't know. There's something just… uncanny about abandoned places," Ten said, "Spaces aren't supposed to be empty. Everywhere else, if a building has nothing in it, squatters show up within minutes. The idea of something just sitting there, same as it ever was, with no signs of life? It must be haunted."

"Haunted! First it's crime stories, then dirty novels. Don't tell me you're into ghosts as well…"

"Well, as it turns out, demons are real, so I'm not taking any chances with fairies or ghosts or…"

She stopped talking abruptly as a crash of metal on stone echoed through the vast cavern, followed by a pitter-patter of bare feet in the distance, though the place's acoustics meant neither could say where. It seemed to be simultaneously coming from above, below, left, and right. Ten ventured down off the boulder and looked up and down to see if she could lay eyes on the source. The footsteps scurried one way, then another, and then stopped abruptly. She strained her eyes into the darkness at the end of the caverns but saw nothing.

There was a sound like a whisper of wind, though there was no wind down here, and Ten realized that someone, somewhere, was whistling. The footsteps started up again, little, scurrying things, seeming to be getting further away. This would have been comforting if the whistling were not simultaneously getting louder and more distinct, as though it were getting closer. It wasn't a melody that she recognized, but it was slow, with a little lilt to it. It sounded like a lullaby.

"Oh fuck this," she muttered to herself, thoroughly creeped out, and returned to the mouth of the tunnel.

"Anything to report, soldier?" Alistair asked.

"Whatever's making that noise, it's not showing itself."

"You're not going to go find it?"

"Nope."

"Wait… you're scared."

"Well, it's a little… eerie, mysterious whistling…"

"You basically spat in the face of a sitting monarch."

"And I'd do it again."

"Giant man goat things."

"Bigger they come, harder the fall. I draw the line at mysterious footsteps in the dark."

"Oh come on, Ten, it's probably just a…"

"What?"

"Don't move."

"Wh-"

"Sh!"

Her instinct was to turn and follow his gaze right over her left shoulder, where one of the tunnels to the horseshoe bend was. She settled for watching his face for some clue as to how much trouble they were in.

"Maker's breath, I have never seen anything so…."

"What is it?" she hissed under her breath.

"Fine, just… turn around very slowly. I don't think it's looking at us. But keep your voice down."

She felt a bead of sweat trickle down the back of her neck as she turned, at first just her head, but when she didn't see anything out of the corner of her eye, she let the rest of her follow.

"What is it?" she asked again, "We walked that passage twice!"

"I guess we missed something…"

"I still don't see it."

"It must have gotten back into the tunnel. I'm going to go get the others. Just keep an eye on both of those openings."

"What? Why me?!"

"The dog listens to you more often."

Ten glanced at Pigeon, who was totally unbothered and appeared to be having a dream about chasing something smelly. "Fine."

She glanced from opening to opening, one hand on her ax. She felt her mouth grow dry and was very conscious of her heart pounding against her ribcage, and tried to stay very still while everything in her was screaming at her to run. She imagined what nasty things lurked down here. The sheer number of deaths that it must have seen as the dwarves fought to the death for every inch of territory. Casualties on that scale couldn't possibly leave a place completely unhaunted…

More footsteps echoed every which way. They sounded closer. She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone dry. She looked furtively around. Nothing came out there, it couldn't have…

She did not have time to contemplate what might have happened when something seized her from behind, pinning both arms to her sides, and began dragging her backward. She made a noise in a register that she thought only the dog could hear. So, this is how I go. Survive two credible threats of execution and multiple suicide missions, only to be… hang on… this is familiar.

"Oh, fuck off," she spat. She was then abruptly set free. Gaining her feet back, she whirled to see Alistair, who had wisely backed up beyond range of fist or palm, laughing so hard he could barely stand.

"The noise you made!"

"You're lucky I didn't stab you."

"I'd have worried about that if you had your dagger."

She looked down and saw that either she had managed to fasten its scabbard to her belt but not the blade itself, or it had been covertly confiscated while she was focused on other things.

"You know this means war, right?"

"Do your worst, Tabris. It was worth it just for the look on your face." He got himself upright and wiped his eyes with the back of one hand.

Somewhere, the whistling started up again. It sounded further away, and the song had changed, but it still had the simple melody of a children's song, though this one sounded almost mournful.

"It's just some poor ghoul, wandering the dark until he gets got," Alistair said, resting one hand on the back of her neck comfortingly.

"That's worse," she said.

"It is, isn't it."

The whistling came closer, then went further away, then seemed like it was coming from the opposite direction than it had, and the two of them stayed silent, listening to the strange music bounce all around the cavern and contemplating their own fate, until Oghren arrived to relieve them.