David Gaider - The Calling

“Point made. What did you see?”

“She didn’t actually go very far.” He hesitated, suddenly not sure he should be relating the story, after all. Perhaps Genevieve would view it as an invasion of her privacy. He had been snooping on her, though at the time he told himself he was just making sure she’d be safe. But now that he’d brought it up with Fiona, there wasn’t any point in stopping. “She went just down a ways from the crossroads with a torch. Then she began taking off her armor.”

“You watched her strip?”

“No! I mean … well, yes, but it wasn’t like that. I thought that maybe she just wanted some privacy. I was going to turn around and let her be, and that’s when I saw it.”

“Saw what?”

“I thought it was a bruise.” He remembered only too well the patch of discoloration that had extended all the way from the Commander’s bare shoulder down the side of her ribs and almost to her thigh. He had been alarmed at first, especially at its intensity. Too dark to be a bruise, he’d wondered if maybe it had been a burn from the dragon’s fiery breath. Had she been hiding her injury this entire time? Why would she? “It wasn’t, though. I don’t think Genevieve knew what it was, either. She held the torch close to take a good look in the light.”

“And what did she see?”

“I thought … I thought it looked like darkspawn flesh.”

Fiona stared ahead, pondering this information as they walked. For a moment, Duncan regretted telling her. He hadn’t been sure what to think when he’d seen the “bruise.” He’d been horrified, and from the look on Genevieve’s face, she’d felt the same. He had the feeling, however, that it hadn’t been the first time she’d seen it. She’d known it was there, and had hidden it from the rest of them.

“It could just be an injury,” she offered. “An old injury.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What else could it be?” She turned to look at him sharply. “Do you think she caught the plague? She’s a Grey Warden, how can that be?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Maric walked up to them suddenly, effectively interrupting their conversation. “What are you two whispering about so urgently?” he asked, trying to fight against a yawn and losing the battle.

“It’s nothing,” Fiona said too quickly.

“I was just telling her how tired I was,” Duncan cut in. “We didn’t get much sleep before Genevieve was kicking us all up. I could have sworn I’d just shut my eyes.”

Kell walked close, his bow unslung and at the ready. Hafter padded along amiably beside him. “I, for one, am glad we did not sleep more,” the hunter muttered.

“Really?” Maric asked.

“The dreams were difficult to bear.” Kell’s eyes darkened and he looked away. Hafter glanced up at his master, whining quizzically.

Utha stepped toward them, making several agitated gestures with her hands. Fiona sighed and nodded her agreement. “I was the same. The dreams came as soon as I closed my eyes, like I was drowning in them.” She closed her eyes and shuddered at the memory.

“Perhaps it is being within the Deep Roads?” Kell asked.

Maric shrugged. “I haven’t had any dreams. Besides the usual, I mean.”

“Grey Wardens always have dreams,” Fiona explained. “It comes with being part of the darkspawn consciousness. They’ve been getting worse since we entered the Deep Roads.”

“Each night has been worse than the last,” Kell added grimly.

“Not me.” Duncan put up his hand. “I’ve been fine.”

Fiona regarded him with a suspicious eye. “Are you sure? I thought for certain …”

“No. Just the normal sort of cheese dreams.”

“Oh! I get those,” Maric chuckled.

“Really? Fiona was using these spells to turn the darkspawn into giant pillars of stinky cheese, and I kept thinking, ‘Why stinky cheese, of all things? I hate stinky cheese.’ But she wouldn’t use a different spell and got really angry at me.”

“You mean like that?” He indicated the elf, who was indeed glaring at them with seething disapproval.

“You are both idiots,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes.

“I think it was more that she just really liked stinky cheese,” he told Maric. “She kept taking a big bite out of each pillar. All I could smell was feet.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“That’s what I said!”

Genevieve’s appearance ahead of them cut off all conversation sharply, like a splash of cold water. They all stared as she stormed back toward them, her demeanor cold fury. “Why have you slowed?” she demanded. “We are there.” Without waiting for a response she turned back.

They rushed to catch up, and quickly discovered that she was correct.

Fiona held up her staff and let the white light shine intensely into the cavern they entered, and that still didn’t reveal it all. Duncan felt like they were disturbing a tomb, a great cavern full of the skeletons of ancient dwarven buildings long since settled to their quiet decay. He could see hints of crumbling walkways, great columns and statues fallen to the ground and shattered, gutted buildings, some of which climbed almost up to the vaulted ceiling high overhead.

Once this had been a bustling city, and now it seemed nothing more than silent and still. A thick black dust had settled over everything, and the upper reaches of the cavern were nothing more than a grey cloud full of strange clumps. If that was all a result of the webs being burned down so many years before, they hadn’t been rebuilt. Perhaps the giant spiders had moved on? They could always hope.

“Ortan thaig,” Maric breathed. Duncan noticed the distant, haunted look in his eyes. He got that way every time he thought of his last voyage in the Deep Roads. It made Duncan wonder why the man had agreed to come back here at all, despite the urgency of their mission.

Genevieve had her greatsword held out before her warily. All of them had their weapons in hand now, in fact, staring into the still shadows as if they expected a swarm of monsters to come rushing out at them. “Has anything changed?” she asked Maric.

“Fewer cobwebs.”

The Commander gestured to Kell, who moved forward and knelt, studying the thick layers of dust and dirt that covered the stone. Hafter paced around him, snuffling at the ground with his nose and sneezing. “There has been much movement through this cavern. Most of it has been very recent, and darkspawn.”

“And my brother?” she asked.

The question hung in the air, and Kell paused. He stared at the ground with his pale eyes, as if he could see patterns in the faint tracks that none of the rest of them could. Duncan suspected that was probably the case. The hunter had a sensitivity to the taint that went far beyond any tracking ability he might have learned during his time with the Ash Warriors. He was always the first to sense the approach of darkspawn, and he could discern between the various breeds by their scent alone. Some of the Grey Wardens even used to claim that Kell could do the same with them, sense who was who from afar just as if they were darkspawn. If so, the hunter never commented on it.

“Your brother has been through here,” he finally agreed.

“Where?”

He arched his brow at her. “I am accustomed to his particular scent, Genevieve, but even I cannot track him through all the others. He has been here; that is all I know.” He gestured at the ground, and even Duncan could see that the piles of black dust and dirt had been disturbed by many pairs of feet. Darkspawn feet, presumably, though apparently not all.

Genevieve frowned in frustration, and she searched the distant shadows of the thaig helplessly. Then her features hardened and she set her jaw, turning back to regard the others. “Then we search every inch of this ruin until we find some trace of him.”