Blood Wound Chapter 23 - I just wish to talk

[miri1984]

Title art by 

cave_fatuam 

The man was dying. Alim was surprised he wasn't already dead, in fact, although the taint was unpredictable in some, Hespith and Ruck had lasted for years.

 

They hadn't looked as bad as this man though.

"No. Don't look, don't look at me."

"Who are you?"

"Olaf. My name. Came with friends to drive out… away… the elf. But the darkspawn were too quick. We were ripped apart. Biting claws and teeth from the darkness. And then I woke… flesh and bone and gristle under me… around me… Everyone dead. Dead soft meat melting into the ground. I crawled away. Came here. Can't stand to see it…"

The pit of corpses had been enough to make Nathaniel cover his mouth and Anders retch. Alim had stared blankly for a few moments before turning away. It wasn't the worst thing he'd seen in his time as a warden.

Nate and Anders haven't seen broodmothers yet.

"Did you kill the elves?" he asked, probably harshly, but there were a lot of deaths to account for in these woods and he wasn't entirely certain all of them could be attributed to one crazy elf and a bunch of as-yet-unseen darkspawn.

"No. No. Darkspawn came first. They slaughtered us. Took our steel. Brought it to the elven camp. Tricked us. Tricked the elf. Now she thinks we are to blame. Hunts all in her rage. While they watch."

"So all these people died over a misunderstanding? Maker… that's horrible! We have to stop her. Tell her she's wrong! Do you think she's back at her camp? We could try looking for her there…"

"The dark ones are curious about you too. They watch you as well as her. Can you feel them?" Alim nodded. It was easy now, to feel the taint crawling along his senses, and it didn't simply come from the man in front of him. They would likely not get away from here without a fight.

"Do you know anything about the elf's sister?"

"Sister? I have a sister… do I? Elf sister… no… we did not take her. Probably dead. Or eaten."

"Where did the darkspawn come from?"

"Beneath. Around. From shadows."

This is what you get when you ask crazy tainted people for information, he thought. Surely he should have learned better by now.

He looked at the man long and hard for a moment. "This disease will kill you you know."

"Am already dead. Am already gone. Make an end. Please."

Alim swallowed, reaching for his knife. None of the others attempted to stop him. The man gave a soft sigh of relief as he slid the knife home, thinking of Hespith, of Ruck… even of Riordan.

Of himself, in twenty, maybe thirty years.

Of Anders, Nathaniel, Oghren, Sigrun… all of them would suffer this fate, if they let it go on too long.

You do not have to. Remember Avernus.

The blood that flowed over his hands from the man's wound was tainted, worse than his own, but it still sang to him, still pulled him inwards and towards it like a drug. It took Anders' hand on his shoulder to bring him back to himself…

…and the darkspawn. Naturally there were darkspawn as well.

When the last of them fell to one of Nathaniel's arrows Anders was still looking stricken. "We are going to find her, aren't we?" he said. "She can't keep going on like this… imagine how she'll feel when she realises she's…"

Alim bit his lip. "We can go back up to the camp and see if she's there, Anders, but it's more important for us to find where the darkspawn are coming from."

"She'll keep attacking the caravans if we don't stop her somehow," Nathaniel pointed out.

"True." A glint of silver on one of the darkspawn made him frown. He knelt down to find a small pendant, delicate work, obviously valuable. He tucked it into a pouch and looked up towards the camp. The sooner they got out of these woods the happier he'd be. It seemed an age since Sigrun had been laughing about plants. Darkspawn blood and taint and burning sylvans had left a bad taste in his mouth and a creeping sense of foreboding.

Something was not right here, and it had the smell of the talking darkspawn about it. Planting weapons to make it look like the militia had attacked the elves? Darkspawn liked to do their killing personally, in his experience. They didn't have the imagination to plan the sort of sick misunderstanding that had happened here. It was malicious and frightening.

They were nearly back at the camp when she appeared again. "Why are you still here? I told you to stay away from me! I warned you! This place is not for you!"

Alim resisted the urge to freeze her. Her powers were unknown, there was no point in testing them until he had to. "The humans did not kidnap your sister!" he called.

She sneered. "I know a human crime when I see it. I have experienced more than enough of them. You will pay for repeating their lies."

He didn't need to ask whether she'd accept payment in coin.

"You know what?" Alim said, as he shot fire at a sylvan Anders had frozen in place with a paralysis spell.

"What?"

"I'm beginning to think all Dalish mages are unhinged."

"You've met some before now?"

Alim grimaced and whacked a wolf on the head hard enough to break its skull with Wintersbreath. "Just the one. He was… less than reasonable."

"I still want to ask her about that spell. Can we not kill her?"

"If she stops trying to kill me, I'll be happy to try."

"Damned inconsiderate. She should be thinking about the practical applications of magic and the joys of intellectual collaboration, not…"

"…how to most effectively boil the blood of humans in their veins?"

Anders laughed. "Yes. That." The last of the wolves died with a whimper and Anders prodded at it with his boot. "She's pretty too," he mused. "Seems a shame."

"Oh Maker, Anders," Alim said, "Dalish are even more prickly about that sort of thing than your average non-mage. Don't push your luck."

They climbed up to the remains of the elven camp, Alim feeling a buzz of weariness in his limbs that had little to do with physical exertion. She was kneeling by one of the stone covered graves, an easy target, should he give the order to Nathaniel to fire. One arrow, and she would trouble no more caravans. The simple solution.

The moment was lost when she spun around. "You! You will not take me alive."

He sighed. "I'm not going to kill you."

She was as taut as a bowstring. She knew what she was doing was wrong. It gave him a little hope. "I will not go with you to some… shemlen magistrate. I won't bow to their rules."

"The people you killed deserve Justice," Justice said.

Alim held up a hand to stop him from exacting it immediately. "I just…" he shrugged. "I just wish to talk."

She laughed. "Talk."

"The darkspawn were playing the humans against the elves."

"What? The darkspawn are mindless. It is not possible."

"The humans can't be responsible. The darkspawn killed them."

"They should never have come here in the first place. If they had just left us alone, all this would never have happened," the woman surged to her feet as she talked, all the rage of her loss vibrating through her. Alim could feel the raw potential of her power. It was awe-inspiring, and frightening, and he braced himself for an attack that never came. Instead the proud shoulders slumped a little and she looked at the ground. "If it wasn't the humans who killed my people and took Seranni, are you saying the darkspawn did it?"

Alim fingered the pendant in his pouch, debating. Then he shook his head and tossed it towards her. "I found this trinket on a darkspawn."

She caught it nimbly, one delicate blond eyebrow arching over her eye. "This… this was Seranni's. She would never willingly part with it. Our mother gave it to her before she died." She traced a finger over it's edge, wonder and sadness in her voice. "Why would the darkspawn do this?"

He could picture Hespith's face far more clearly than he would have liked. But mincing the truth would not help him here, and the woman deserved all the information he had. "They make females into broodmothers," he said.

Her eyes widened. "Are you saying Seranni will become one of them? I will not allow that!"

He looked at her. "Let me help."

"You? You want to find Seranni? Why?"

"No one deserves to suffer at the hands of the darkspawn."

There was a moment when he thought she would refuse. The eyes narrowed, the stance altered. She was obviously so used to attack. He was reminded of Zathrien, and of the Dalish keeper's fate. So much strength, and sometimes it was channeled into such hatred… Perhaps this time, it could be channeled somewhere better?

He couldn't deny that Anders was right. Part of him really wanted to learn the spells she wielded. But it wasn't just greed for knowledge that motivated him.

"Thank you," she breathed eventually. "Perhaps I… misjudged you. My name is Velanna, if you care for such things. Do you know where the darkspawn might dwell?"

"Tunnels, most like."

"There is an abandoned mine some ways to the north of here, the tunnels run far into the earth. We will likely find the darkspawn there."

They walked towards the ruins that marked the entrance to the mine. As they walked, Justice glared at Velanna with almost palpable waves of righteous anger. There was a real possibility the spirit would choose to exact vengeance for the fallen militia and caravaners if he was forced to endure her company for too long, and he knew full well how little impact magic had on the sometime-corpse - if the two of them got into a fight Velanna would be dead in the first minute.

When they reached the mine entrance Alim stopped the spirit from entering with his palm flat on his breastplate. "I want you to stay here and guard the entrance, Justice," he said softly. "There's a chance there are still darkspawn in the woods, and they'll want to come back to whatever twisted thing is controlling them eventually. I'd rather not have them come up behind us, if it's all the same to you."

"As you wish, Commander."

Alim smiled and nodded. It was tactically sound, and he couldn't deny it would be a relief to have someone as solid as Justice guarding their backs.

When the spell hit them at the bottom of the ridiculously long and winding staircase, Alim had time to wonder if it would have affected Justice, but not enough time to curse his stupid luck for not bringing him.